Meet the Ex-Neo-Nazi Using Tech to Deradicalize the Far Right
Brad Galloway employed the internet to find new recruits for neo-Nazi hate groups. Now he uses it to help them leave.
Brad Galloway opens up his phone and scans through his most recent Facebook messages.
“I’ve been in the white power movement for five years and I want out,” one reads. “I hate who I’ve become.”
“Really struggling with the loneliness today,” another says. “I don’t have a single buddy left after leaving the group.”
Galloway carefully replies to each one. He advises the guy desperate to leave that he should make steps to reconnect with old friends from his days before joining the far right. He talks the second through positive things he could fill his time with, such as sports or going back to school.
Galloway can relate. With his brown hair, beard, and unassuming button-down shirts, today the 39-year-old father of three blends in easily on the streets of Vancouver, Canada. But less than a decade ago, he sported the unmistakable uniform of a street skinhead — black bomber jacket, boots, and a shaved head. Galloway spent almost 15 years in Canada’s neo-Nazi movement before breaking away in 2011. But now he’s part of an online network working to…
