Bob CollinsThe family of a Fargo, N.D., man who was outed for attending the white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend is rejecting him.
Peter Tefft, of Fargo, was identified by a Twitter account which has been publicizing the names of people who attended the rally, during which Nazi slogans were shouted.
“We’re right,” Tefft tweeted yesterday.
U do what u do and we do what we do. Here's the thing… We're right. https://t.co/CYmHHyD4Yn
— Pete Tefft (@TradiPeter) August 13, 2017
WDAY reports Tefft’s family members have been threatened since his identity was revealed. That prompted his nephew, Jacob Scott, to issue a statement to the station rejecting his uncle.
In brief, we reject him wholly – both him personally as a vile person who has HIMSELF made violent threats against our family, and also his hideous ideology, which we abhor. We are all bleeding-heart liberals who believe in the fundamental equality of all human beings.
Peter is a maniac, who has turned away from all of us and gone down some insane internet rabbit-hole, and turned into a crazy nazi. He scares us all, we don’t feel safe around him, and we don’t know how he came to be this way. My grandfather feels especially grieved, as though he has failed as a father.”
Several members of our family have been being harassed or threatened by random strangers, due to our connection with Peter. I know in particular that Peter’s sister Cathi has been contacted or threatened at her workplace, under the assumption that she must be a nazi or endorse nazism.
We also have some relatives who live in Hawaii, who have randomly found themselves attacked, including a 13 year old girl, my cousin, named Julia, who has supposedly been messaged online by at least one random stranger in a threatening manner. Our Hawaii relatives were calling us in a panic earlier today, demanding we delete all Facebook photos that connect us to them, etcetera.
“I’m a pro-white activist,” Tefft told High Plains Reader two weeks ago. “Nazi is a racial pejorative, kinda like our N-word. If you want to be real, myself, a pro-white activist, maybe some National Socialists and other pro-white organizations, typically have been the only ones willing to stand forward to protect the freedoms of everyone on the right.”
The “outing” of protesters marks a new use for the Twitter platform, CNET writes today.
Twitter has strict rules about disclosing personal information, such as intimate photos, social security numbers and financial information. Identifying individuals from photographs taken in public settings, such as the rally, don’t appear to violate those rules.
Twitter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Another person outed by the Twitter account, Peter Cvjetanovic, 20, told KTVN in Reno, “I did not expect the photo to be shared as much as it was. I understand the photo has a very negative connotation. 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.”
“There’s no anonymity online these days, and anyone who acts in public can potentially face public scrutiny,” Tech Crunch’s Jonathan Shieber writes today. “The question is whether the people marching on a weekend are willing to have their views circulated in an office on Monday morning.”
