Charlottesville Rally Opponents Virtually Unhood White Supremacists

NEW YORK, NY — While Ku Klux Klan members once used hoods and masks to conceal their identities, many of the white supremacists at the now-infamous rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend did nothing to hide their faces, which ended up in photos and video spread across the internet and emblazoned on TV news.

Online opponents of the white supremacists have latched on to these photos and are now dredging up the names and workplaces of the rally-goers in a virtual unhooding campaign — with mixed results.

"You can either actively oppose white supremacy, or you can silently support it," tweeted the user of the account @YesYoureRacist, one of the most prominent leaders in the effort to out Charlottesville protesters. "There is no other option. Silence is consent. #BashTheFash." (For more national stories, subscribe to the Across America Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. For more political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

The user boasts victories in identifying several attendees. Cole White, who @YesYoureRacist said is "the first person I exposed," ended up resigning under public pressure from his job at a Berkeley, California, hot dog restaurant.

Others, including Peter Cvjetanovic, have felt the need to publicly defend themselves after they were identified by social media users.

“I did not expect the photo to be shared as much as it was. I understand the photo has a very negative connotation," Cvjetanovic told KTVN. "But I hope that the people sharing the photo are willing to listen that I’m not the angry racist they see in that photo.”

He added, "It was on the front page of The Guardian, and my heart sank."

"@YesYoureRacist and others are not holding back," said MSNBC host Joy Reid on Twitter. "But then, these white nationalists were willing to be public in support of their views."

"Maybe next time these [expletive] will remember to wear their hoods..." tweeted @YesYoureRacist.

But when the online horde act in tandem, it's often with a bludgeon rather than a scalpel. This time, the collateral damage includes Kyle Quinn, a researcher at the University of Arkansas.

As The New York Times reported, Quinn and his wife were forced to hide out at a colleague's home after he was falsely identified as one of the protest attendees — despite the fact that he was hundreds of miles away from Charlottesville at the time.

Quinn's unfortunate resemblance with a protester photographed wielding a tiki torch at the protest led to the false identification.

In response to the naming-and-shaming efforts, some defenders of the white supremacist rally-goers tried to expose the identity of @YesYoureRacist on Twitter. Twitter quickly shut down that attempt, according to the Times.

With more white supremacist rallies planned in the near future, opponents of racist hate groups hope that the threat of identification and shame could reduce public support for the ideology. But without a more rigorous fact-finding approach, these efforts risk catching innocents in the crossfire.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images