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Anonymous web developers doxxed people, and gained thousands of followers, submissions, and dollars—then disappeared.
“Expose Charlie’s Murderers,” a website created shortly after right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September promised to provide a searchable database of the names and workplaces of over 60,000 people “supporting political violence online,” sortable by employer, location and industry. Its stated purpose was to execute “the largest firing operation in history.” The website listed six cryptocurrency blockchains and asked supporters to fund “a highly sophisticated enterprise system that will be impervious to Leftist attacks.” Over a two-day period, the website’s anonymous developers collected more than $30,000, per CoinTracker, software used for crypto-based taxes. About 190 payments were made to the six crypto addresses between September 12 and 14. But over the next several days, its website was taken down. It relaunched as the Charlie Kirk Data Foundation on September 14, but the domain registrar Epik LLC deplatformed its second website because it was registered using false information and received DDoS attack threats. A third ECM website was also taken down. On September 23, ECM disappeared from the public eye by making its last post on X. The group has not responded to several inquiries from Drop Site on where the donations went, and whether they are still planning the database. Some of those who spent money on this prospect are not happy. “I want my donation back!” one MAGA-supporting X user said.
Targeting the radical leftCharliesmurderers.com was registered at 6:30 p.m. EST on September 10, less than two hours after President Donald Trump announced the Turning Point USA founder’s death on Truth Social. At 6:15 p.m., Trump posted a video stating his commitment to eradicating left-wing organizations that “contributed to the atrocity.” At that time, no suspect in Kirk’s killing had been apprehended or identified. By 8 p.m., the ECM website listed nine people who either celebrated Kirk’s death or criticized his positions, with their locations and accompanying screenshots, all taken from social media. One person called Kirk a “throbbing hemorrhoid.” One posted “PLEASE BE DEAD” repeatedly on Instagram. Others reposted other people’s writings accusing Kirk of racism, xenophobia, and transphobia. “Is an employee or student of yours supporting political violence online? Look them up here,” ECM advertised on its homepage. The page also asked for site viewers to submit people for the database by email. The list grew to include private messages. Most were one-line comments. ECM called themselves “Anon Palantir.” They claimed to work with Fortune 500 companies, Big Tech data scientists, and veteran political operatives to make the database, though they never identified any of these alleged collaborators. ECM also denied being a doxxing website. The Department of Homeland Security defines doxxing as accumulating sensitive information on a person and releasing it for “malicious purposes” like public humiliation or targeting for harassment. The department says full names, contact information, and workplace details are examples of sensitive information. By September 14, the data foundation claimed receipt of 63,648 submissions for their database. But ECM only ever listed 41. A massive database has not been published, but the website’s initial efforts had consequences for the people exposed. Threats and terrorErin Gudge, the board chair of the Philomath School District in Philomath, Oregon, was forced to resign on October 7 after she wrote that she “will not mourn” Kirk in a Facebook post. Her resignation followed torrents of stalking, harassment, and violent threats, which she described at length at a Philomath school district board hearing. “This situation has been terrifying and awful and beyond anything I would want anyone to experience,” Gudge told Drop Site. Alex Wilson, a researcher in California, was doxxed on ECM over two Instagram stories posted to several hundred followers. One mocked liberals who unilaterally condemn violence. The other referred to Kirk’s past statement that “Palestine doesn’t exist,” and added that now Kirk doesn’t exist. Wilson was leaving a meeting on September 10 when alerted by a friend that she was posted to a “far-right doxxing site.” Immediately, avalanches of threats snowballed in her Instagram messages: “Unspeakable things are coming for you.” “Kill yourself waste of space.” “You stupid worthless cunt.” “Can’t wait till you get raped.” She made her account private, bought a service to scrub her personal data from the web, and tried to forget the threats. But Wilson found she was nervous to even walk around outside. It also led to a “nightmare of inconvenience”—people emailed her work, calling for her removal. Her workplace stood by her and decided to remove her from their social media for her safety. She was so affected that she threw up after a meeting on the subject. “I don’t think that Charlie Kirk’s death was a win for anyone. And in that way, I was not celebrating,” Wilson told Drop Site. “I also cannot and will not be compelled to feel grief or sorrow for that person.” Rebecca Allen, a student at the University of California, Riverside, was doxxed over two Instagram reposts, one calling for gun reform and another expressing “no empathy” for Kirk. ECM listed Allen’s undergrad, Sacramento State University, as the place to find her. Multiple professors from the university told Allen they received emails from people trying to expel her from the art history grad program—a program she was not actually enrolled in. Allen thinks she’d have suffered far more from the exposure if her current school had been listed. She locked her social media and did her best to ignore the streams of messages swarming her account. “I am generally very outspoken… [This] has made me second guess some of the things that I post,” she said. She also plans to wear masks when she goes to protests, which she never did before. Wilson and Allen, who attended the same high school in a conservative area, were both doxxed on the evening of September 10. Allen suspects someone from their alma mater reported them to ECM.
A selection of messages sent to one of the people whose information was posted online by Exposing Charlie’s Murderers. Capitalizing on the momentBy the afternoon of September 12, when Expose Charlie’s Murderers published its peak 41 entries, the site had gotten millions of views and commendations from figures like Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Scott Pressler. The website also charmed one North Carolinian, going by N.W., who emailed over 200 submissions to ECM, including employees from Disney, USPS, and the Universal Life Church. Most of the submissions he found while scrolling through Facebook. “When you list your place of work on your profile, you make yourself an ambassador for that company, and anything you say can and will be associated with your employer,” N.W. told Drop Site. None of his submissions were published, and he never heard back from ECM. He’s still hopeful ECM will make a comeback. ECM said they’d spend donations on running a lasting database, protecting against hackers, and collaborating with expensive engineers. N.W. hopes the foundation will use their acquired funds to hire employees to man the database. “I guess the site got so overwhelmed with submissions that they just haven’t gotten their database up and running yet,” N.W. said. “I still hope one day, they’ll put it up.” Others suspect the site is running a scam. “Sounds like they were after a grift more than anything,” said Allen. “I think that the donation part was probably motivated by the desire to capitalize on the moment,” Wilson said. “I don’t think that someone who lacked [right-wing ideology] would have had the instinct to make it.” Who made the site?Charliesmurderers.com was registered with Namecheap Inc. and hosted by Squarespace. Their next site, charliekirkdata.org, was registered through Epik LLC. Neither site is accessible as of September 16. (Both Wilson and Allen—and presumably several others—had contacted Namecheap and Squarespace to request the database be pulled down. Neither company responded to a request for comment.) The data foundation’s third site, ckdf.org, was established on September 23 around 2:30 p.m. EST, and registered by “Franklin Hurd” out of an office building in downtown Spokane, Washington. That website went dark sometime after September 28. The registrant is locatable by email on ICANN Lookup; the email recipient did not respond to Drop Site’s inquiries. A suite in the Spokane building is the registrant’s mailing address that several companies use for mail. Washington Commercial Registered Agent, a company that conducts legal correspondences for other companies, owns the building and operates out of the suite. The service did not respond to multiple inquiries. The Charlie Kirk Data Foundation has not responded to any of Drop Site’s inquiries placed between September 22 and now. |
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