‘We’re not responsible for any crime’: ExeHonestly admins respond to racism controversy

ExeHonestly have denied responsibility over recent allegations that admins have allowed Nazi propaganda to be posted on the page.

A series of posts on ExeHonestly were found to have Neo-Nazi and white supremacist origins. Screenshots of the posts have been circulating on Twitter after students realised the confessions had racist connotations.

ExeHonestly told The Tab Exeter: "We do not condone any hateful racist content on our page, and endeavour to filter any posts of that nature.

"As soon as we were made aware of the true meaning behind those posts, we removed them from our page. We deeply regret that they cleared our attempts at scrutiny and have made people feel unsafe, however, we do hope that people understand the nature of dog whistle posts is that the true meaning is not apparent to people unless they are aware of the hidden meaning behind them – if we were aware of the meaning we would not have approved the post."

They added that they are "disappointed that certain individuals chose to screenshot those posts and post them on their personal twitter accounts, rather than immediately alert us to the post's true meaning, as this would have resulted in the posts being removed sooner and has given more publicity to someone's posts who was likely intentionally trying to be inflammatory and cause a reaction."

The admins of the confession page have criticised the University's decision to escalate matters to the Police Hate Crime Unit.

They told The Tab Exeter: "We are not sure as to who they mean by being 'responsible'. The University has made no attempt to contact us about those posts in order to identify those responsible for submitting them, and in the past when we have reached out to them to improve our support and conduct, they have been combative and uncooperative."

They added: "As a team, we do not believe ourselves to be responsible of any crime, as hate crime requires genuine intent to stir hatred, and we were regretfully ignorant of the posts meaning and took action as soon as we became aware of it."

One controversial post offered a bag of sweets to those who could answer the riddle: "What accounts for 13%, yet 52%?".

A reference to a statistic circulated by white supremacist online communities, who claim that "despite making up only 13% of the population, blacks make up 52% of crimes."

Another post read: "People's favourite number? Mine's 1488".

This is a combination of two white supremacist symbols. The first being 14, which is shorthand for the fourteen-word slogan "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children", coined by David Lane, a member of white supremacist terrorist group 'The Order'. The second is 88, which stands for "Heil Hitler"; H being the eighth letter of the alphabet.

Both posts have since been deleted.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Exeter uni reports Exehonestly for allowing ‘Nazi propaganda’

• Exeter uni to escalate Exehonestly complaint to Police Hate Crime Unit

• ExeHonestly apologises for uploading racist ‘no n-word November’ submission