Those stories led to police examining the videos covertly recorded by a National Socialist Network infiltrator, several large employers sacking extremist staff, and former network members issuing statements repudiating the group. It also revealed the network’s support for the Christchurch terrorist and domestic terror suspects, and their use of encrypted platforms such as Telegram to recruit and organise. It included an undercover operation to infiltrate the nation’s largest white supremacist group, the National Socialist Network.
The rise of the white supremacy movement and neo-Nazism in Australia was exposed this week after The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes published the first part of an eight-month investigation. The proliferation of extremist material in the dark corners of the internet also raises questions about the effectiveness of the federal government’s efforts to force tech companies to remove and report extremist material from their online platforms.