Australian neo-Nazis in ‘stolen equipment’ fundraising drive as X suspends accounts
Elon Musk’s X has suspended a raft of accounts associated with neo-Nazis from Australia’s National Socialist Network after the group boasted they had raised $13,000 to replace equipment ‘stolen’ by police.
Elon Musk’s X has suspended a raft of accounts associated with neo-Nazis from Australia’s National Socialist Network but not before the far-right extremist group boasted that it had raised more than $13,000 to replace equipment “stolen” by Victoria Police.
On Tuesday, in a rare but “significant” move under Mr Musk’s ownership of X, a raft of accounts belonging to high-profile Australian far-right figures, including Thomas Sewell, Jacob Hersant and Blair Cottrell, were suspended – prompting suggestions of a level of “co-ordination” between the platform and the federal government.
Many NSN members had returned to X after being previously banned, including Mr Sewell, Mr Hersant and Mr Cottrell, who gained tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of views on recent posts, before Tuesday’s abrupt suspension of a swath of accounts.
On Telegram, NSN members claimed the account crackdown was “obviously” spearheaded by Australian authorities trying to silence the group.
Deakin University associate professor Josh Roose said the removal of accounts did suggest a degree of involvement of the federal government.
“It looks like the Australian government is becoming more agile and active in targeting the extremist right online,” the political violence expert said.
“It’s a significant development that suggests a co-ordinated effort, likely with the Australian government on board.”
Both Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, were contacted.
The NSN had previously vowed to continue to spread “hate” – it remains active on encrypted platform Telegram – and its recent financial haul will go toward replacing laptops, cameras, mobile phones and other digital equipment confiscated during Victoria Police raids, the group said.
In January, NSN leaders Mr Sewell and Mr Hersant announced the curtain call on their “fundraiser to replace equipment stolen by police” on GiveSendGo, an American crowd-funding website that has been criticised for platforming far-right extremists.
“Victoria Police under orders from the Chinese consulate and Jewish lobbies raided members of our organisation and stole cameras, laptops, phones and other accessories used for our online political promotion,” the pair claimed.
“These raids are an attempt to instil fear in the wider community and stop white people from promoting and protesting for their racial interests.”
The pair had spruiked the drive on Telegram across the last few months, with other NSN supporters promoting the campaign on X.
Mr Hersant recently thanked his followers for the donations, saying it would allow him and other NSN members to continue their “work”.
“We received the money without being deplatformed,” he said. “Now, we can continue to spread the hate with our new gadgets. White power! Hail victory!”
Opposition Home Affairs spokesman James Paterson warned against any Australian financially supporting neo-Nazi groups and urged law enforcement to probe the fundraising.
“No one in Australia should facilitate or contribute to neo-Nazi fundraisers for any purpose, but especially not to engage in incitement to violence,” said the senator, whose party warned this week of the threat of the far-right on X.
Speaking before Tuesday’s X account suspensions, Ms Inman Grant said that tech companies needed to actively enforce their policies and protect communities.
“A policy is only as good as its enforcement is consistent; however, it is almost inevitable that any social media platform will become more toxic and less safe if you combine significant reductions to safety and local public policy personnel with thousands of account reinstatements of previously banned users,” she said.
“If you let the worst offenders back on while at the same time significantly reducing trust and safety personnel whose job it is to protect users from harm, there are clear concerns about the implications for safety.”
The “stolen equipment” fundraising drive is separate to Mr Sewell’s longstanding “White Australia Supporters” campaign for a “whites-only community”, which has raised almost $50,000 over the past year.
It comes after South Australia police arrested and charged 15 men and one minor – all NSN members, including Mr Sewell and another high-profile member Joel Davis – during an Australia Day protest in Adelaide that allegedly included Nazi symbols.
It follows a recent investigation by the British Broadcasting Corporation that recorded Mr Cottrell allegedly likening Africans to dogs and uproar on Tuesday after AFL personality Sam Newman invited Mr Sewell and Mr Cottrell onto his podcast.
On Monday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced counter-terrorism sanctions on online neo-Nazi network Terrorgram, which uses Telegram to share radical white supremacist content – relisting four other groups under the regime.
But Dr Roose said the governmental and law-enforcement response to Australian neo-Nazi networks had long been in a “continual stasis”.
“There’s a small group of highly active men, active online but also popping up at protests, who often get away with what they shouldn’t be doing and (promoting) hate speech,” he said.
“There’s certainly an escalation of force available (to law enforcement) if they wanted to, including depriving people of wearing masks … If someone is seen to identify as a neo-Nazi it gives the public the opportunity to reject them.”
Dr Roose said much of the NSN’s “deeply racist tropes and extremism” online would likely breach the Racial Discrimination Act, but there remained challenges with dealing with and weeding them out.
He said there were pitfalls to designating the NSN as a terrorist organisation in that it would succeed in driving them further underground, not dissimilar to apprehension surrounding listing Hizb ut-Tahrir for the same reason.
“(Governments) outlawing Nazi symbols and the salute has caused problems (for neo-Nazis),” he said.
“It’s deprived them of their symbols they use in mobilisation and they’ve been held to account (when they’ve used them).”
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