The highly anticipated list of KKK members leaked by hacker group Anonymous was finally released yesterday. After a close look, the lengthy list of names and groups is disappointing, “exposing” previously known racists, while also suffering from numerous inaccuracies and errors.
Many of the names on the list were already known white supremacists, who display a confederate flag or KKK insignia on their Facebook profile. One of the most prominent names on the list was David Duke, a former Louisiana representative and senate candidate, who was previously known to be a former Grand Wizard in the KKK.
Anonymous gained access to the information by hacking into the Facebook account of a trusted KKK member, and found the names of other members through “social engineering,” according to Anon6k, the Twitter handle of an Anonymous member who worked on the leak.
Anon made sure to hype up the importance of the leak, as several accounts appeared on Twitter claiming that the leak would expose many current politicians. None of the mentioned politicians appeared in the real list of names, and the early leaks were quickly revealed to be not affiliated with the group.
See the info leak below:
Although the release of information sparked interest from many civil rights groups, the actual leak exposed nothing new. Mark Pitcavage, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, called the list “low-hanging fruit, basically public source information.”
However, the list wasn’t merely disappointing and obvious; It was also riddled with errors that were quickly detected by journalists. Many of the people on the list were white supremacists, but were not associated with the Klan. Several names were misspelled and jumbled.
The list also mentions Ben Garrison, a political cartoonist known for anti-government work. Garrison is not in the KKK, or even a white supremacist. Garrison’s work was plagiarized to include racial stereotypes, and circulated online with his name still attached, damaging his reputation.
Anonymous’s list is not just disappointing, but also inaccurate. The overhyped leak couldn’t deliver on its promise of exposing government officials, and even has the potential to seriously effect people’s lives due to sloppy research.
Featured image via Flickr
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