Far-right extremists leakedemail addresses and passwords belonging to employees of the Gates Foundation, World Health Organization, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and a virology center in Wuhan, China. The data is not a new, but rather a compilation of previous data leaks, meaning that most of these emails and passwords are possibly defunct by now.
This data dump, according to a report by Vice, first surfaced on the anonymous posting board 9chan on Monday, April 20th, and then spread to multiple social media platforms today. A U.S.-based private terrorism watchdog, SITE Intelligence, then traced the migration of the data to neo-Nazi terrorist organizations.
The motive behind this data dump, according to researchers from anti-terrorism watchdogs like SITE and Counter Extremism Project, seems to be to sow discontent, misinformation, and resentment amid a population already reeling under the socio-economic duress of quarantines and lockdowns.
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Apart from right-wing extremists like neo-Nazis, experts have previously warned that conspiracy theorists known as “accelerationists” also intend to use the coronavirus pandemic to cause chaos and hasten the destabilization of society. One of the more harmful conspiracy theories being circulated due to the email leak is that the WHO is hiding how the novel coronavirus was created in a lab and spliced with HIV.
“Far-right extremists’ distribution of allegedly hacked data by organizations like WHO and the Gates Foundation is fitting to how they’ve targeted medical organizations and personnel amid the pandemic,” Rita Katz, executive director of SITE Intelligence, told Vice. She added, “Whether out of accelerationist or conspiratorial-minded motivations, white supremacists and Neo-Nazis have called to vandalize hospitals, intentionally infect medical workers, and beyond.”
Considering the potential increase in distrust of governments and world leaders due to the Covid19 crisis, the increasing influence of far-right individuals with nefarious intentions is deeply troubling.
