Introduction
Using internal communications previously leaked to the public by an activist and an online journalist collective, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has created a network map revealing the internal structure of Patriot Front — a secretive and violent white nationalist group that is one of the largest in the United States.
The Patriot Front network map provides a detailed picture of the group’s structure as its leaders coordinated a racist and bigoted campaign of vandalism, leading to the destruction of dozens of works of public art that celebrated Black culture, LGBTQ+ pride, or commemorated victims of police murder and racially charged violence in the fall of 2021.
The map reveals a tightly controlled communication network dominated by only four members. Leader Thomas Rousseau holds dictatorial sway over the group; he appears to — largely on his own — determine what information is shared with members and how. The group also appears designed to limit communication between members, who are broken down into regional networks. In other words, communication is largely vertical, not horizontal — giving Rousseau a great deal of control and creating little room for collective actions between low-level members who could challenge Rousseau’s leadership. In addition, most information discussed in the network relates to Rousseau’s orders to engage in targeted campaigns of harassment. For example, a series of messages relate to coordinating the destruction of a Pride mural in Olympia, Washington.
The SPLC built this network map using more than 35,000 direct messages sent between 227 Patriot Front members on Rocket.Chat, an open-source chat platform that served as the group’s primary communication channel in fall 2021. That year, an activist from Washington state infiltrated Patriot Front and leaked the messages, along with a trove of other documents, to the independent journalist collective Unicorn Riot. Rousseau acknowledged the authenticity of the leaks on a Jan. 28, 2022, podcast hosted by white nationalist Joseph Jordan.
Mapping communication networks within hate groups is a way to understand who is in charge, who is influential, and who is talking to whom about what. In other words, network maps help show the structure and nature of an organization. Most researchers create network maps between groups and use publicly available information (e.g., online followers, hashtag use) to chart ties within the hate movement. To produce a network map that shows ties within hate groups, researchers need access to internal communications of group members, such as emails, group chat messages, direct messages and meeting logs.
Due to the clandestine nature of the white power movement — where groups are often trying to conceal criminal activities, harassment campaigns, their most hateful and violent beliefs, and the identities of their members — it is rare to get access to a group’s inner communications. Prior to online messaging platforms, white power groups coordinated activities through such methods as “phone trees,” which are a way to contact a large amount of people relatively quickly. In a phone tree, each person called is responsible for contacting other designated people. Sometimes, communication records are released following civil and criminal court cases, but these records usually involve a few people and a specific incident — not the everyday conversations of an entire organization. Despite its leader’s attempts to tightly police the group’s membership and internal culture, Patriot Front made a series of security lapses, which provided researchers access to a trove of internal communication they can use to expose the internal structure of the organization.
What Is Patriot Front?
Patriot Front, founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau, is the most active white nationalist group in the United States. Rousseau first became active in the white power movement as a member of Vanguard America (VA), which he joined as a high schooler. While still a teenager, he helped organize VA’s participation at the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, where VA member James Fields drove his car through a crowd of counterprotesters, striking dozens, including Heather Heyer, who was killed. Earlier in the day, Fields was photographed alongside Rousseau wearing the same style of polo shirt, hat and pants as other VA members. Facing a great deal of media and legal scrutiny, Rousseau staged what amounted to a coup within VA, taking control of the group’s main communication server, Southern Front, and ousting his detractors. He renamed the group Patriot Front.
Rousseau carefully oversees Patriot Front’s public image, which he has purposely designed around an Americana aesthetic that is meant to appeal to the larger conservative movement. The group’s goal, according to its manifesto, is to create a white ethnostate. The manifesto states in part: “Membership within the American nation is inherited through blood, not ink. Even those born in America may yet be foreign.” In a propaganda video posted to Telegram on Jan. 2, 2025, Rousseau is more explicit about the group’s goals, stating that Patriot Front is composed of men “who alongside their families” are “working to establish a future for our people.” This quote from Rousseau paraphrases the “14 Words,” an infamous phrase in the white power movement created by David Lane, a violent white supremacist who was imprisoned for his role in the killing of Jewish radio host Alan Berg.
Patriot Front’s activism includes carefully staged performances of hatred in which masked, uniformed men holding metal shields, flagpoles and racist banners descend unannounced into communities to incite fear in residents. The group also frequently distributes racist flyers. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Map of Hate Group Flyering in the U.S., Patriot Front has posted more than 30,000 racist flyers since 2018, which is 10 times more than the next group that uses this tactic. The network map of Patriot Front helps visualize which members are most important for keeping these racist activities going.
Patriot Front, which Rousseau and his trusted loyalists operate from their headquarters in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas, is active in all 48 states of the contiguous U.S. Rousseau relies on a trusted group of middle managers, called network directors, to manage Patriot Front members’ activities in specific regions, which the group calls “networks.” Fifteen regional networks existed within Patriot Front in 2021, according to leaked documents obtained by Unicorn Riot. Some states, including Texas, contain multiple networks, while others — like one in the Pacific Northwest that stretches from Oregon to Washington and Idaho — transcend state boundaries.
After members are vetted by Rousseau’s network directors, new Patriot Front recruits choose an alias from a preapproved list of names to avoid the social consequences involved with joining an openly white supremacist group, according to court documents. Rousseau does not conceal his identity as the group’s leader. He does not use an alias inside Patriot Front and is one of the few leaders in the group who appear in public without face coverings.
Since December 2021, community researchers and journalists have identified more than 100 previously unknown Patriot Front members using the materials leaked to Unicorn Riot. The leaked documents also provided insight into the beliefs and activities of well-known leaders inside Patriot Front. While the SPLC uses the aliases of Patriot Front members in the network map, most of these people have been identified. For this report, the SPLC is choosing to identify well-known Patriot Front members that were found to be the most influential in the network.
Summary of Findings
The network map the SPLC produced provides one way to measure and visualize the influence of each member in the organization, as well as the internal structure of communication inside Patriot Front. In this case, “influence” refers to a person’s ability to get another person or group of people to follow their directions. The math used to map networks often reveals influence that is not readily apparent. Influence is based on the quality and quantity of each person’s communication in a network. The more communication someone sends and receives, the more influential they are to maintaining the network. However, quality of connections also matters when measuring influence. The most influential people in a network communicate more to those people, who likewise send and receive more communication relative to others.
The communication network inside Patriot Front is centered around Rousseau and three of his loyalists, who form part of what essentially is a layer of middle management inside Patriot Front that oversees the activities of group members. Rousseau is the central actor responsible for directing much of the information flow in the network. The map reveals that Rousseau pushes information to the edges of the network and has a team in place to ensure compliance with his messages. While many people at the edges of the network must go through one or two people to reach Rousseau at the center, Rousseau also directly interacts with some on the edge to ensure that information is received and understood.
The map reveals that Kyle Morelli, aka “Vincent TX” — despite not having an apparent leadership position in Patriot Front — was the second most influential person in Patriot Front in fall 2021. Combing through Morelli’s direct messages reveals that he helped spearhead the logistics of rallies and meetups, and that he is connected to other SPLC-designated white nationalist groups. The SPLC’s network map also reveals that Paul Gancarz, aka “ND-Sam VA,” and Kevin Lowy, aka “Jason NY,” were the third and fourth most influential figures in the organization. Gancarz is a former Proud Boy with a long history in the hate movement who oversees Patriot Front’s operation in the mid-Atlantic region, while Lowy helps to manage Patriot Front’s social media team, according to the leaked documents
Aside from measuring influence, the network map organizes Patriot Front members together into neighborhoods, which are then color-coded, to represent nodes that routinely communicate with each other. Neighborhoods in this sense are networks within networks. In Patriot Front, one main neighborhood emerges based around Rousseau that stretches into the deepest corners of the network. Rousseau’s neighborhood illustrates how carefully he oversees the activities of the group. Other neighborhoods are formed around geographic regions, which is apparent by the aliases in each neighborhood seen on the network map. As seen on the map, the four most influential Patriot Front members in the network form a triangle, with Morelli in the middle. Triangles in networks can represent informal or formal authority figures and are crucial conduits of communication. The Rousseau-Morelli-Gancarz-Lowy triangle is tightly bonded together and ensures network cohesion, information flow and network resilience. In other words, without this triangle of four men, the communication network inside Patriot Front would fall apart.
How To Use the Network Map of Patriot Front
Network maps have been used to investigate the structure of terrorist cells and criminal organizations. The math used to map networks measures the connections between individuals (nodes) in a network, including the quantity of connections (degree) and the sequence of connections (path). The path establishes how directly an individual communicates with the center of the network and identifies the shared connections between nodes. Nodes that share a lot of connections are grouped together on the map and are color-coded.
The size of each node corresponds to the number of connections an individual has in the network. The larger the node, the more connections the node has in the network. The size of the line illustrates the number of messages sent between nodes. The larger the line, the more often the two nodes communicate in the network.
The quantity and quality of connections help establish how influential a node is in a network. The more central the node, the more directly the node communicates with high-value players in the network. Smaller nodes near the center indicate that the node communicates less overall, but they communicate with influential people. Larger nodes outside the center indicate that they communicate more often with less influential nodes in the network.
The Structure of the Communication Network Inside Patriot Front
The SPLC produced the network map using more than 35,000 leaked direct messages sent to and from 227 Patriot Front members over Rocket.Chat that were obtained by Unicorn Riot. The leaked direct messages were sent by Patriot Front members between October and December 2021. Most of the direct messages were conversations between two parties; however, the leaked messages also include a few group chats that involved between three and five people. In total, the network map visualizes 1,672 unique conversations inside Patriot Front. Some conversations included hundreds of back-and-forth messages that spanned months, while other conversations were a few messages long and lasted less than a day.
The network map reveals several key insights about the structure of Patriot Front. Patriot Front’s internal network is denser and has a greater amount of communication between more people, compared to a randomly generated network map of the same size. In other words, compared to a randomly generated network, Patriot Front members are more interconnected and communicate more often, which are characteristics that typically result in more efficient information flow. The network map also reveals that only four people are essential to direct communication at the high volume of traffic between interconnected Patriot Front members.
Specifically, the network map reveals the following:
- The average Patriot Front member communicates to just over 14 people (14.73) inside the group, which is more than double the average number of connections generated by a random network of the same size. This indicates that communication inside Patriot Front occurs at a greater volume and people have more variety of connections.
- The average path length, which denotes how many nodes it takes to reach the center of the network (i.e., Rousseau), is just over 2 (2.14). The randomly generated map has an average path length of 2.7, which suggests that Patriot Front’s network is dense and that communication across the network goes through a few powerful players before connecting with Rousseau — the main driver of traffic.
- Rousseau is the most influential person in the network and converses with 160 people, or 70.7% of the network. (If the automated messages are included, Rousseau converses with 214 people, or 94.6% of the network).
- Morelli is the second most influential person in the network and converses with 142 people, or 62.8% of the network.
- Gancarz is the third most influential person in the network and converses with 69 people, or 30.5% of the network. Gancarz is positioned closer to the center of the map, which indicates he communicates more with influential people in Patriot Front.
- Lowy is the fourth most influential person in the network and converses with 69 people, or 30.5% of the network. Lowy is positioned away from the center of the map, which indicates he has fewer conversations with influential people, but he is nonetheless an important conduit of information in the network.
- The largest and most influential neighborhood is based around Rousseau. While Rousseau’s reach within the network is the most widespread and stretches across the seven other neighborhoods, his neighborhood is the operational hub of Patriot Front. Direct messages reveal that the largest nodes in Rousseau’s neighborhood were crucial for coordinating logistics and security for Patriot Front rallies and trainings. Rousseau’s neighborhood also searched for and identified the infiltrator, recruited new members and coordinated the circulation of racist propaganda.
- Aside from Rousseau’s operational neighborhood, the other neighborhoods are based around regions of the U.S. These regions are labeled and color-coded on the map.
Significance of Network Density and Connectivity Inside Patriot Front
The communication network within Patriot Front has a greater variety of connections and is denser than a randomly generated network map, which provides several clues as to how information flows inside the group. A network with 14.73 average connections suggests that Patriot Front members have more ways to access and share information than a randomly generated map. Typically, a greater variety of connections within a network provides people access to a diverse range of information, resources and opportunities. However, informational diversity is not evident in the leaked direct messages. Instead, within Patriot Front’s network, a person may be linked to nearly 15 people — but most information being circulated consists of messages that ensure compliance with Rousseau’s orders, which include planning rallies, events and propaganda runs.
A communication network with an average path length of 2.1 suggests that Patriot Front members form a dense network. Shorter communication pathways typically mean information spreads quickly from the center to the edge of the network. In addition, dense networks with a large variety of connections, like Patriot Front, are typically tightly knit and resilient, which suggests that if connections break (e.g., someone leaves the group), key influencers in the network have more ways to bridge the gap in a few steps.
The Four Most Influential Patriot Front Members in Fall 2021
The network map reveals four primary influencers inside Patriot Front in fall 2021. Unsurprisingly, the map reveals that the group’s leader, Rousseau, is the most influential person in the network. Likewise, Gancarz is a known leader in the organization. He joined the group relatively early, and as a network director he manages the activities of Patriot Front in the mid-Atlantic region.
The two other primary influencers in the map, Morelli and Lowy, are more revealing because of their apparent lower status compared to members in leadership positions. However, the network map suggests that Rousseau also works closely with members who bring specific skills or interests to the group. In Morelli’s case, direct messages reveal his importance to managing the technological infrastructure and logistics for Patriot Front. Lowy’s influence stems primarily from his role on Patriot Front’s social media team.
Thomas Rousseau, Patriot Front’s leader
As the central person in Patriot Front’s internal network, Rousseau communicates more frequently with more people and is only two steps away from the periphery of the map. The relatively few steps between the center and the edge of the network suggest that Rousseau tightly controls its operations. In addition, Rousseau’s closest connections are not grouped closely together like other nodes on map. The relatively large amount of open space around Rousseau’s node indicates that his closest connections do not talk to each other. The map points to a command structure in which Rousseau has several well-trusted lieutenants that he speaks to regularly. Some of Rousseau’s network directors have their own branches in the operational network, while others spawn distinct neighborhoods in the network. However, there is relatively little communication between network directors in the network; thus Rousseau’s node appears as an island. This suggests that network directors either use other platforms to communicate with each other, or that Rousseau structured the organization specifically to isolate his underlings and maintain his tight grip over the network.
Rousseau involves himself in large and small matters across the network, according to direct messages. For example, these messages show Rousseau meticulously overseeing Patriot Front’s public image, including providing minor video production notes, pushing a network director to paint a racist mural in Texas and demanding that members stick to the slogans he created. Rousseau’s involvement in the minutiae of Patriot Front’s day-to-day activities has also extended to offering tips to network directors on how to boost participation, checking in on new members’ activity and criticizing a member in a group chat for spending too much time with his girlfriend.
Kyle Morelli, Patriot Front’s operations manager
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the network is the influence of Morelli, who talks to more people more frequently than any other Patriot Front member besides Rousseau. Morelli and Alex Beilman were publicly identified as Patriot Front members after they were arrested and charged with vandalism and tagging for allegedly spray-painting the group’s slogans in Salem, Massachusetts, in July 2021. Law enforcement found Patriot Front propaganda inside Beilman’s backpack, including two stencils of the group’s slogans and cans of red and white spray paint, and observed red paint on Morelli’s and Beilman’s clothing. In 2023, a judge found the pair not guilty, declaring that state prosecutors failed to prove that Morelli and Beilman were the culprits behind a specific incident of vandalism and tagging that night.
Independent researchers connected Morelli to his alias Vincent TX, which the SPLC verified using the leaked direct messages. For example, Vincent TX used Rocket.Chat in late November 2021 to ask a handful of members whether they would attend his wedding. In a direct message to a Patriot Front ringleader, Vincent TX mentioned that his wedding date is “Jan 29.” Morelli held his wedding Jan. 29, 2022, according to images of the wedding invitation posted to X. In a Nov. 28, 2021, direct message to an unidentified Patriot Front member, Rousseau mentions that Vincent TX is from the group’s chapter in New England. Morelli grew up in Rhode Island.
Morelli keeps a low public profile. Rousseau, Gancarz, and a few other Patriot Front leaders appear in public without face coverings, but so far, Morelli has not done so at any of the events the SPLC has reviewed. The map shows that Morelli, like Rousseau, is an essential driver of information and communicates to people across the network. He talked to central figures, such as network directors, as well as rank-and-file members on the edges of the network, which made Morelli a key conduit of information in fall 2021.
The leaked chats revealed Morelli as the manager of the Rocket.Chat server. He was responsible for on- and off-boarding new members onto the platform. Morelli helped identify the infiltrator, as well as plan the December 2021 rally in Washington, D.C. Part of Morelli’s role appeared to be speaking to members who say they cannot participate in Patriot Front events. In a Nov. 23, 2021, direct message to an unidentified Patriot Front member, Morelli wrote, “Can you try to be less hostile … nobody is out to get you, it’s my job to understand the reasons why people are not coming.”
Real-life participation is a key requirement for Patriot Front members.
The leaked messages also show that Morelli worked as a liaison for Patriot Front with other groups in the movement, including the Pennsylvania-based white nationalist book publisher Antelope Hill. In a Nov. 23, 2021, direct message to Rousseau, Morelli shared an “Antelope Hill Investment Package,” which was a real estate venture in Laytonsville, Maryland, overseen by a previously identified Patriot Front member who worked in real estate at the time. Morelli was also involved with a group chat with Rousseau and two other Patriot Front members in New England that was used to oversee operations in the region. In a message sent to the group Nov 24, 2021, “We shouldn’t be removing yard signs off of private property, so the idea itself should not even be on paper.”
Paul Gancarz, Patriot Front’s true believer
Gancarz is a longtime far-right activist who was first identified by Antifa Seven Hills and the Torch Network. He was photographed at the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally alongside members of the Proud Boys wearing the Proud Boys uniform: a black and yellow polo shirt, a black MAGA hat and fighting gloves. Gancarz leads Patriot Front’s operations in the mid-Atlantic region. His duties include recruiting new members, organizing the distribution of racist propaganda and leading drills and training. Kai Liam Nix, a Patriot Front member who went on to join the U.S. Army, attended one of Gancarz’s training sessions in November 2021, when he was still a high schooler.
Residents of Richmond, Virigina, sued Gancarz and four other Patriot Front members for their alleged role in destroying a mural in a historically Black neighborhood dedicated to tennis legend Arthur Ashe. Gancarz and the other defendants settled the case, but the details remain confidential. According to court records, Gancarz admitted he led Patriot Front’s efforts in the region at the time of the vandalism, but he claimed that three of his underlings acted alone. The motion Gancarz filed mentioned that going forward, Rousseau would require “leadership approval of any actions involving murals.”
The map reveals that Gancarz communicates more to influential people in Patriot Front than to Patriot Front members on the periphery, which suggests he was deeply involved in the group’s operations in fall 2021. The leaked messages reveal that Gancarz’s position in the network reflects his leadership experience, personal loyalty to group members and commitment to Patriot Front’s white nationalist cause. For instance, in a Nov. 14, 2021, series of back-and-forth messages, Morelli and Gancarz debated how best to communicate standards to their followers.
“I meant what I said, I don’t like people thinking PF is just greater movement and we are all interchangeable,” Morelli wrote to Gancarz using the abbreviation of Patriot Front. Morelli added, “I’ll tell you the same thing I told John [a Patriot Front member]. People come here because we are disciplined and serious. It isn’t a big deal to set proper expectations, I was forward, we are fascists.” About 20 minutes later, Gancarz replied: “I advise you on how you can be a better leader. Rather than say the only thing you should say, which is Thank You Samuel, you are debating me about the reality, which is You should be less sharp with him.”
Starting Nov. 24, 2021, Gancarz used Rocket.Chat to organize a Christmas toy drive for the younger brother of Kevin Bersuch, a Patriot Front member who died at the scene of a car crash in Utah during a propaganda run earlier that year. Six other Patriot Front members were in the car, including Rousseau, who required emergency surgery. Bersuch was active in the mid-Atlantic region. As the network director for that area, Gancarz likely played a role in recruiting and vetting him into the organization.
Gancarz appears deeply committed to Patriot Front’s white nationalist cause in his conversations with members of the group. A few days after starting the toy drive for Bersuch’s younger brother, Gancarz sent a message to a Patriot Front member who was nervous about attending the upcoming rally in D.C., fearing the group would be violently attacked by their perceived enemies. Gancarz wrote: “We MUST do what we do. We have a duty to do so, a duty to all the young men out there who have yet to realize how to be brave…”
Following the rally in D.C., Patriot Front members came back to the agreed-upon drop-off point to find their vehicles vandalized. The antifascist infiltrator had leaked the drop-off information to community members, who destroyed vehicles belonging to Patriot Front members as they marched. Two days after the D.C. rally, Gancarz wrote to another Patriot Front member about the damage to their vehicles: “In the end, the most important thing is my Volk and keeping them safe.” “Volk,” the German word for “people,” is often used by neo-Nazis.
When Patriot Front members began to get publicly identified with materials the infiltrator collected, Gancarz reached out to one on Dec. 9, 2021, with encouragement, writing, “I would die before I leave a brother behind.”
Kevin Lowy, Patriot Front’s junior propagandist
Lowy is a longtime far-right activist who was first identified by antifascist researchers in 2019 working as a camera operator for Jovanni Valle, aka Jovi Val, a former Proud Boy who produced an online show that circulated bigoted and hateful conspiracy theories. In November 2021, Lowy was photographed wearing a distinctive brown coat outside an event for the now-defunct National Justice Party (NJP), a white nationalist group that folded in December 2023 amid allegations of financial mismanagement. In addition, Lowy is one of several Patriot Front members identified in leaked documents as attending a November 2021 NJP event.
The network map reveals Lowy communicates more to less influential people, which suggests he is an important conduit of information from the periphery to the center. Lowy’s surprising amount of influence in the network stems from his work on the Patriot Front social media team and his role as a recruiter. Since fall 2021, the SPLC has identified Lowy working as a camera operator at dozens of Patriot Front rallies using photographs posted to social media by community members. Digging into direct messages reveals Lowy’s role behind the scenes. For example, in a Dec. 9, 2021, message, Gancarz asked Lowy to consider one of his underlings for a role on the social media team, writing, “He has a lot of experience using bots to boost our stuff on twitter.” Lowy responded about an hour later, “I will see about getting him on social media team.”
Lowy’s relationship with Graham Whitson, aka Mason TX, is perhaps the best representation of Lowy’s influence in the network. Whitson is a longtime Patriot Front ringleader, Rousseau’s former roommate and Patriot Front’s chief propagandist. Whitson works closely with Will2Rise and Media2Rise, according to leaked documents obtained by Unicorn Riot. Will2Rise, founded by Robert Rundo and Grady Mayfield, is a white nationalist clothing brand, while Media2Rise is a propaganda project Rundo launched to cover white nationalist rallies, conferences and fight club events.
In the network map, Whitson’s node lies directly between Rousseau and Lowy, which indicates Whitson is Lowy’s primary conduit of connectivity to Rousseau. However, Whitson is less influential in the overall network. Whitson connects to more influential players in the network compared to Lowy, but Lowy connects more often to more people in the network. In other words, Lowy relies on Whitson to connect to powerful players, while Whitson relies on Lowy to connect to the edges of the network.
Like other conversations between members of Patriot Front, Whitson and Lowy’s conversations frequently included the use of racial slurs, jokes about the Holocaust and exaggerations about the size of Patriot Front. The majority of their interactions, however, revolve around their work for the group.
In their messages to each other, Whitson and Lowy work closely together as part of Patriot Front’s social media team, with Whitson stepping in to offer edits, praise and connections to other groups in their movement. For example, on Nov. 29, 2021, the two exchanged a series of messages about how to boost Patriot Front’s propaganda during the upcoming rally in D.C. As the pair shared ideas, Whitson inadvertently revealed he was one of the administrators of Media2Rise’s Telegram channel. A short time later, Allen Goff, aka Lucca, who is part of the inner circle at Media2Rise and a longtime white power activist, used Whitson’s Rocket.Chat account to praise Lowy, writing, “Aye yo [n-word] this lucca2rise, u a king.” Lowy quickly responded, “Thanks king.” According to leaked messages, documents and photographs, Whitson, Goff and apparently Rousseau were together in Waukesha, Wisconsin, at the time to cover an NJP rally for Media2Rise. Less than a minute later, Lowy wrote, “Here’s a sneak peak of my planning,” and then shared a document titled “pr.mater.png.” In the document, Lowy outlines his plans for amplifying Patriot Front’s propaganda on social media platforms Reddit, Twitter (now X) and 4Chan during the group’s upcoming rally in D.C. Part of Lowy’s plan included how to use cloaked social media accounts to trick journalists into sharing Patriot Front videos. Less than a minute later, Whitson responded, “Very nice.”
Neighborhoods Within Patriot Front’s Network
The color-coded neighborhoods that appear in the network represent which members share a high degree of connectivity. Rousseau’s neighborhood — highlighted in light green — represents the operational hub of Patriot Front that stretches into the deepest corners of the network. The largest nodes in the operational neighborhood were essential to organizing Patriot Front’s on-the-ground activities in fall 2021 as well as managing Patriot Front’s public image.
Interestingly, Rousseau, Morelli, Gancarz and Lowy appear on the network map as part of the same neighborhood and as a large triangle within the network. Triangles that appear on network maps signify a dense and tightly bound subgroup. In this case, the triangle represents the people who were most essential to operating Patriot Front in the fall of 2021. Morelli’s node is in the middle of the triangle, illustrating his significance as a conduit to this powerful subgroup in Patriot Front.
The other neighborhoods offer a window into branches of the network formed around regions of the U.S. For example, the neighborhood color-coded in dark blue represents a branch of the network in the Midwest and South, which suggests Patriot Front chapters in these regions communicate more often compared to other parts of the network.
Data Collection and Scope
The SPLC collected the direct messages and went through several rounds of data cleaning to ensure accuracy and reliability. Next, the SPLC used Gephi, an open-source software, to visualize and analyze the network. In addition to the network map of Patriot Front, SPLC staff produced a random network map that included the same number of nodes and conversations. Researchers who map networks commonly generate random maps as a point of comparison when finding comparable data that includes the same number of nodes and conversations is difficult.
The SPLC did not include Rocket.Chat channels in its data collection. Patriot Front members used channels to communicate within their chapter. Channels were also created to oversee certain group operations and discuss shared interests. The SPLC chose to not include channels in the network map to focus on the people who communicate directly with each other inside the group.
The SPLC did not include automated announcements sent by Rosseau involving the group’s Dec. 4, 2021, rally in Washington, D.C. Removing these announcements from the map got rid of members who never participated in conversations in the network. Removing the announcement messages narrows the network map to the people who regularly communicated with Rousseau and drastically reduced the quantity of his connections. For many people in the network, the only communications they received from Rousseau were these automated messages. Removing these messages spotlighted Morelli’s influence in the network.
Limitations
The network map has two central limitations. First, the direct messages used to create the network were sent between Oct. 1, 2021, and Dec. 14, 2021. Since then, many of the people in the network left Patriot Front after being publicly identified as members of the organization. In addition, while many of the most influential people in the network continue to serve Patriot Front, their roles and relationships in the organization may have changed. Instead, it is best to view this network map as representative of the structure of Patriot Front as its leaders were coordinating specific on-the-ground activities in a three-month timespan.
The second limitation relates to the scope of the network map. Only direct messages sent through Rocket.Chat, which continues to be the group’s main communication platform, appear in the network map. Patriot Front members in these leaked messages mention moving more sensitive conversations over to encrypted messaging platforms Threema and Mumble, but messages from these platforms were not included in the leak and do not appear on the map. In the fall of 2021, Patriot Front’s leaders used Rocket.Chat to coordinate a large-scale rally in Washington, D.C., and training sessions and to distribute racist propaganda. Leaders also used Rocket.Chat to confirm attendance at events of outside organizations, as well as holiday parties and weddings. Lastly, and most consequentially, leaders of Patriot Front used Rocket.Chat to coordinate the destruction of works of public art that celebrated the role of diverse cultures in shaping American history or commemorated Black and Brown victims of police violence.
Megan Squire contributed to this report.
Image at top: Photo illustration by the SPLC.