The Rise and Fall of Terrorgram: Inside a Global Online Hate Network
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On Jan. 19, 2024, the sheriff of Jacksonville, Florida, released a 27-page manifesto left behind by Ryan Palmeter, a 21-year old white man who had murdered three Black people at a Dollar General store before turning the gun on himself.
The Florida Times-Union, a prominent local news outlet, said it would not be publishing the document, which it said used the N-word 183 times and had an “overall theme of white superiority.” T.K. Waters, the sheriff, said he had posted what he described as the “rantings of an isolated, hateful, madman” to keep his promise of public transparency. An attorney for one of the victims’ families urged the public “to not give Palmeter the satisfaction of publishing or distributing his manifesto,” saying it “contains not one redeemable thought.”
Thousands of miles away, in Elk Grove, California, Dallas Humber saw Palmeter’s view of the world as perfect for her audience of online neo-Nazis. Humber, a now-35-year-old woman with a penchant for dyeing her hair neon colors, was a leading voice in an online network of white supremacists who had coalesced in a dark corner of Telegram, a social media and messaging service with almost a billion users worldwide.
She and her comrades called this constellation of interlocking Telegram accounts Terrorgram. Their shared goal was to topple modern democracies through terrorism and sabotage and then replace them with all-white ethno-states.
Humber quickly turned Palmeter’s slur-riddled manifesto into an audiobook that she narrated in a monotone. Then she sent it into the world with her signature line:
“So, let’s get this party started, Terrorbros.”
The manifesto immediately began to spread, pinballing around the worldwide Terrorgram scene, which celebrated mass shooters like Palmeter as “saints.”
The Terrorgram story is part of a much larger 21st century phenomenon. Over the past two decades, massive social networks like X, Facebook and Telegram have emerged as a powerful force for both good and evil. The ability to connect with like-minded strangers helped fuel uprisings like the Arab Spring and Iran’s pro-democracy movements. But it has also aided extremists, including brutal jihadist organizations like the Islamic State group and white supremacists around the world.
Telegram, which is massively popular outside of the U.S., boasted an array of features that appealed to Humber and her fellow Terrorgammers. They could send encrypted direct messages, start big chat groups and create public channels to broadcast their messages. In the span of five years, they grew Terrorgram from a handful of accounts into a community with hundreds of chats and channels focused on recruiting would-be terrorists, sharing grisly videos and trading expertise on everything from assassination techniques to the best ways to sabotage water systems and electrical transmission lines. On one of her many accounts, Humber posted step-by-step instructions for making pipe bombs and synthesizing HMTD, a potent explosive.
Humber went by a series of usernames but was eventually publicly exposed by a group of California activists. ProPublica and FRONTLINE reviewed chat logs — some provided by the Australian anti-facist research organization The White Rose Society — court records and Humber’s other digital accounts to independently confirm her identity.
U.S. prosecutors say Humber helped lead the Terrorgram Collective, a transnational organization that ran popular Terrorgram accounts, produced sophisticated works of propaganda and distributed an alleged hit list of potential assassination targets. She is currently facing a host of federal terrorism charges, along with another alleged Terrorgram leader, Matthew Allison, a 38-year-old DJ from Boise, Idaho. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Content retrieved from: https://www.propublica.org/article/rise-and-fall-terrorgram-inside-global-online-hate-network-frontline-telegram.
