The channel, which functions similarly to a Twitter account, would post a call to raid someone, usually identified by their social media accounts. What these people all had in common, but didn’t know, was that they had been chosen as targets by a vicious campaign of online “raids” orchestrated by an account run by one of the internet’s most notorious white supremacists, using the secure messaging app Telegram.įor months, a USA TODAY investigation found, the Telegram channel “Project Mayhem” amassed more than 1,500 followers, who assisted in organized “raids” advertised on the channel. All found themselves flooded with racist and homophobic insults, memes, offensive photos and death threats. In recent weeks, attacks like this have repeated across the country: A Jewish university student in New Jersey bombarded with antisemitic messages a trans man in Florida attacked for his identity a Black YouTuber in Kentucky targeted because of his race. People sending, like, monkey emojis and stuff like that − mostly just racist remarks.” “People saying that my ‘day of the rope’ will come. “I was getting photos sent to me of, like white power,” Unieke said. “I already have complex post-traumatic stress disorder, so, logging on to all that hate is just triggering in general.”įurther north, in Sacramento, California, Unieke, a drag queen who appears at a local all-age drag show, was being bombarded in the same way.
“It was distressing,” said Nygard, who identifies as agender and uses she/they pronouns. The messages poured in, telling Nygard to kill herself, sending death threats as well as “88,” a white supremacist term that stands for “Heil Hitler.” The business owner from San Diego, who co-founded Restrained Grace, a company that creates and sells jewelry, gifts and fetish gear − and whose online profile uses the term "Antifa" − suddenly started getting dozens of hate-filled direct messages on social media. Caution: This story refers to racist and homophobic language.Īnnie Nygard didn’t know what was happening.
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