In a review of leaked Epik data, Hatewatch has identified the administrator of a propaganda network linked to a white power accelerationist group that promotes neo-Nazi terrorism. Jack Espinoza, a former Michigan chapter leader of the terroristic neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division, registered the propaganda site on April 15, 2020, according to Hatewatch’s review of a trove of leaked data from Epik, a web hosting company popular with the extreme right for its demonstrated permissiveness of violent and/or hateful content. Espinoza’s site, which Hatewatch has elected not to name to reduce its visibility, has served as a propaganda outlet for proponents of white power accelerationism – a belief, increasingly popular among far-right extremists, that violence and terrorism are the sole means to achieve their political goal of an all-white ethnostate. Among the extremists Espinoza platformed on his website were the National Socialist Order, a group founded by former Atomwaffen members in mid-2020; James Mason, a mentor to members of both of those groups and an ideological architect of white power accelerationism; and at least one of Atomwaffen Division’s co-founders, Brandon Russell, who was sentenced to five years in prison in 2018 for possessing explosive materials.
The Canadian and U.K. governments designated one of the site’s contributors, the National Socialist Order, a terrorist entity in 2021. Canada has also included James Mason on the same list. Authors on Espinoza’s website have also explicitly advocated for white supremacist terror. On multiple occasions, its pseudonymous contributors have declared that terrorism was the ideal method for ending the “occupation” of white America. In another post, the same contributor stated that any white power activist who failed to embrace “the rivers of war and violence” was merely “a racist liberal.” Hatewatch concluded Espinoza was the administrator, as well as the technical and billing contact for the site, through its review of a trove of leaked database files from the site’s registrar, Epik. Hatewatch obtained these documents after the hacktivist collective Anonymous leaked them to the public in mid-September. (Though Anonymous’ original website crashed shortly after their release to the public, the journalistic collective Distributed Denial of Secrets subsequently aided in their distribution to journalists and researchers.) The files included detailed information about customer payment histories, domain purchases and transfers, and registration information from the web hosting company. While Epik founder Rob Monster initially denied the company had experienced a data breach, an email sent to customers announcing that it had undergone an “alleged security incident” lent credence to the veracity of Anonymous’ claims and the data contained in the leak.
via splcenter: Leaked Data Shows Epik Registered Site Associated With Neo-Nazi Terror