The hacktivist group Anonymous has finally published details of hundreds of people it claims are Ku Klux Klan members and sympathisers.
It follows "days of inaccuracies, confusing reports, and false starts," says the Washington Post. A list published earlier this week naming several high-profile figures has been dismissed as a fake.
"Operation KKK will, in part, spark a bit of constructive dialogue about race, racism, racial terror and freedom of expression," said the group, which is well known for campaigning for social justice.
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Anonymous says it released the list in response to KKK threats to use deadly force against protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, where police shot dead an unarmed black teenager in August last year.
The group said it did not obtain the information by hacking, but rather by interviewing expert sources as well as infiltrating Klu Klux Klan social media sites and posing as white nationalist sympathisers.
There are no prominent names on the list, which includes links to the social media accounts of many known Klan members as well as people with public connections to white supremacist groups.
"Ku Klux Klan members contacted this week confirmed many names as accurate, but say that most are aliases and contend the release will not harm their organizations," Vice News reports.
Frank Ancona, the leader of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was among those named. He told Vice News that he was not worried about the leak.
"I have not had one single member contact me concerned about it," he said. "It will bring some positive publicity in terms of membership."
Anonymous defended the leak in a statement accompanying the list. "The reality is that racism usually does NOT wear a hood but it does permeate our culture on every level.
"Part of the reason we have taken the hoods off of these individuals is not because of their identities, but because of what their hoods symbolize to us in our broader society."
