Canadian military personnel identified on white supremacist dating site

< warm>WARNING: This story contains racialist, antisemitic and wild linguistic communication.

The website WhiteDate, launched in 2017, explicitly marketed itself as a white-only dating platform, welcomed white supremacist and neo-Nazi members and has been referred to as "Tinder for Nazis" by an extremism expert and international media. 

In December, an anonymous hacker known as Martha Root shut down WhiteDate and published its data, exposing thousands of users from around the world on a site called OKStupid.

Canadian military members identified on white supremacist dating site

One user, a navy reservist, shared numerous white supremacist slogans and symbols on a personal social media account. Another, a communications engineering officer with the Royal Canadian Air Force, claims to be part of Canada's initiative to procure next-generation fighter jets.

"The concern about having individuals with these sorts of beliefs in the military is that they are getting access to training, weapons, secure intelligence, that is not meant to be shared with others," said Katherine Keneally, director of threat analysis and prevention with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a non-profit organization that studies and tracks extremism.

Some users on WhiteDate described their political orientation as being, among other options offered by the site, "fascism" and "national socialism" — the ideology of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1930s and '40s. User avatars frequently included imagery such as swastikas and other white supremacist symbols.

Videos hosted on the site promoted the idea that interracial relationships are eradicating white people and its terms of service explicitly banned anyone with "non-white genetic admixture" — in other words, people who are non-white or mixed race.

"I would find it extremely difficult to believe that anybody signed up for that site without knowing they were signing up for a site that was white nationalist, white supremacist, fascist, neo-Nazi," said Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN). 

Root said they must keep their identity a secret because they fear for their safety.

"There are people openly posing with weapons on the website, people training in fighting sports were on this website.… There are death threats against me," Root said in an interview.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Hale is a naval reservist based in Ottawa. Among the clues connecting Hale's LinkedIn profile to the account on WhiteDate is the fact he received a military certificate from a unit based in Esquimalt, B.C. — home to the Canadian navy's Pacific Coast base — in June 2023, while the WhiteDate profile lists Esquimalt as the user's location and was created in July 2023.

In addition to Hale's email address containing his name, his username on WhiteDate resembles the one used for his Instagram account. The WhiteDate email also links to a Microsoft account with a profile picture showing Hale in uniform.

Hale also appears to control an X account that has shared photos that match his Facebook profile and posts discussing his service in the navy. Hale, on the account, has repeatedly said "bio weapons" should be used against people from India and non-whites, shared neo-Nazi images including swastikas and said "keep Canada white."

Balgord, of Anti-Hate, said he was concerned by the number of soldiers identified in the user list.

"When somebody is in the Canadian Armed Forces, they're held to a higher standard of conduct than a civilian would be," he said. "And that extends not just in what they do, let's say on base, but the views that they might express elsewhere in their lives."

The biography section attached to the "Tristan" account said: "I'm a communications engineering officer with the Royal Canadian Air Force." The email address used for the WhiteDate account is also linked to a number of other accounts with Armstrong's name, some bearing a profile picture showing the insignia for the CAF's Communications and Electronics Branch.

According to a Facebook account under the name Tristan Armstrong, which contains photos of him in uniform as a captain in 2016, he began working in 2021 for the CAF's Future Fighters Capability Project — Canada's program to purchase new warplanes that has become a flashpoint for debates around national security as Canada weighs purchasing U.S. Or European-made aircraft.

Keneally, of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, said extremism within militaries around the world has long been a concern and that armed forces typically don't continually vet their members for radicalization.

"Many countries … to some extent have the ability to vet those who are entering the military, but often there isn't a continued monitoring or a continued evaluation of those who might be radicalized during it."

In a statement, the military said allegations about the individuals had been forwarded to the specific units to which they report and investigations had been opened.

The statement said the military "holds its members to the highest standards of conduct for their actions and their online behaviour is expected to reflect the CAF values and ethos."

Shawn Beauvais-MacDonald, a prominent Montreal-based neo-Nazi, is among the users. His organization, called Frontenac Active Club, recently merged with a countrywide white nationalist group called Second Sons Canada. A recent Public Safety Canada report said that the active club movement in Canada poses a risk of "extreme violence.

"We could have a whole rogues' gallery of people who are sort of well-known in the white supremacist space in Canada who ended up having profiles on this dating site," Balgord said.

Martha Root, the hacker, said they believed WhiteDate would attempt to return to operation. "I think they are coming back," they said, adding that they are monitoring the service. 

WhiteDate's owner did not respond to requests for comment sent via email and social media. 

On Telegram channels dedicated to WhiteDate, an account representing the site advised users not to respond to media requests. 

"I do not see the point in engaging," the account wrote. "There is nothing to gain, only your precious time to lose."

In a Feb. 16 post, the WhiteDate account wrote: "To those who are impatiently waiting for WD to resurrect: We are still testing and debugging."

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