Logan Michael Smith of Clarksville, Tennessee: The White Supremacist Behind ‘/pol/ News Network’

This identification has been republished with permission from @SunlightAFA.

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It has recently been brought to our attention that Logan Michael Smith, previously of Stillwater, Oklahoma, completed his Ph.D. in clinical psychology and has been hired as an Assistant Professor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. Out of concern over him having access to impressionable students (and possibly patients), we have updated the original post to include his current location.

Logan Smith was actively posting hateful content to his ‘PNN’ account until his identification in 2023. The original thread identifying Logan can be found on Twitter.

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Welcome to the sunlight, Dr. Logan Michael Smith of Clarksville, Tennessee (previously of Stillwater, Oklahoma and Westerville, Ohio).  Or should we call you ‘Levi Smith’, Unite the Right attendee and operator of the racist ‘/pol/ News Network’ accounts?

Buckle up, it’s thread time! #LightGreenHatUTR #IgniteTheRight

 

Growing up, Logan was a devout Christian, ‘Chief Operations’ for Florida Federation of Teenage Republicans, and an ‘Intelligence Officer’ for an online survivalist group. In 2011, Logan tried to join the Air Force but was discharged due to health reasons.

 

Around this time, imageboard website 4chan created the board ‘/pol/‘ in an attempt to contain the far-right trolls that were overrunning the rest of the website. Instead, the board became a magnet for racists, misogynists, genocidal maniacs, and someone called ‘Levi Smith’.

 

 

 

 

In 2014, Logan’s personal social media accounts seemed fairly normal at first glance. He posted photos of a ‘Kindness Bus’ to his Instagram, and talked about being kind to others. His public persona would be in stark contrast with his growing alter ego.

 

Logan ended up attending Florida State University where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology. While there he got married, and upon graduation they moved to Portsmouth, Virginia. In Virginia Logan worked as a research associate, helping research suicide screening in military populations.

 

 

 

In August 2016, a ‘/pol/ News Network’ (PNN) page was created on Facebook. It shared the most toxic memes from /pol/, hoping to radicalize a wider audience. Around the same time, PNN started showing up on Twitter, Gab, and other platforms.

 

While most are likely to be unfamiliar with the “/pol/ News Network” accounts, one recognizable meme may ring a few bells. In March 2017, PNN posted a meme vilifying Muslims, Drag Queens, and Liberals. It famously backfired and went viral, with liberals proclaiming ‘Yes, this is the future we want!’.

 

In April 2017, a user called ‘Levi Smith‘ joined Twitter and claimed responsibility for several PNN accounts, including those on Gab, Wrongthink, and Youtube. ‘Levi’ also left plenty of other clues confirming he was running the accounts.

 

 

 

 

 

In May 2017, ‘Levi Smith’, Milo Yiannopoulos, & Turning Point USA joined the ‘Safe Streets Project‘ hoping to ‘trigger libs’ in to defending themselves, while recording info to send to cops and make ‘antifa’ look like aggressors.

 

 

 

 

Of course, being an amplifier of neo-Nazi content leads to frequently being suspended from websites. To avoid bans ‘Levi’ framed his PNN accounts as if they were run by multiple people, often calling other accounts ‘affiliates’. In July 2017, however, he did a 4chan FAQ thread where he removed any doubt about who ran them — and why.

 

 

 

 

Although the accounts were operated under a pseudonym and the content primarily consisted of hate memes, that did not detract from their impact on social media. In August 2017, ‘Levi’ doubled the reach of the #UniteTheRight hashtag on Twitter.

At ~93k followers PNN was arguably the most influential account promoting the Unite the Right rally.

 

 

We took a closer look at the @polNewsForever Twitter account and noticed that it was created in 2014, years before PNN existed. By searching on Twitter, we were able to find that the account was previously named @EveryBitcoinKey — a crypto spam account — prior to being rebranded for PNN in May 2017. The PNN account gained almost 18 thousand followers in just 9 days.

 

 

 

But was there a crypto connection? By looking at his job history, we were able to confirm that Logan was a “crypto bro.” His LinkedIn account showed that he worked for Finman Technologies, which was owned by teenage Bitcoin millionaire, Erik Finman. Logan and Erik later worked together at another crypto company, Metal Pay, where Logan wrote his own Employee Spotlight piece.

 

 

 

On August 10, 2017, @polNewsForever stated its Admin was going to Unite the Right. On the 12th, ‘Levi’ tweeted a picture from his car confirming he was going… and that was a mistake.

ANTIFA™ Sleuth Mode: Activated!

 

 

 

That afternoon, James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd of people, injuring dozens, and killing a beloved community member, Heather Heyer. ‘Levi’ claimed ‘Antifa’ was responsible.

In July 2019, almost two years later, Levi was still pushing narratives advocating for murderer James Alex Fields on PNN’s Gab page.

 

 

 

 

Through constant vilification of ‘Antifa’, Logan’s PNN amplified the ‘Safe Streets Project’ use of DARVO — a psychological gaslighting technique that makes the victims of violence look like the aggressor.

 

Upon returning from UTR, ‘Levi’ discovered that his house had participated in trickle-down economics, and posted photos of the aftermath to the internet.

That, too, was a mistake.

 

 

 

While ‘Levi’ blamed ‘racial profiling’ for the robbery, a lady-friend named Brittany Pettibone organized a fundraiser for repairs. Pettibone is an ‘alt-right’ YouTuber who interviews far-right guests such as Aleksandr Dugin and Tommy Robinson.

 

In May 2017, Pettibone interviewed ‘Levi’ about PNN. On August 12 2017, on his way back from UTR, ‘Levi’ video called her from his car. Photos of ‘Levi’ found on @polNewsForever and @LeviSmithUSA matched the man in the interviews, providing more confirmation of his connection to the account.

 

 

 

 

We still needed to verify where ‘Levi Smith’ was located. Based on social media posts, we estimated travel time to be 2.6 – 3.1 hours, which limited our search to certain regions. We mapped gas stations along routes, and searched for the barriers in Levi’s photo. We found only one match, near Portsmouth / Norfolk, VA.

 

 

 

 

“I’m being racially profiled!”

No, ‘Levi’, you were just exposed to the well-known side-effects of structural inequality. One of these heat maps shows property crime, the other shows household income. Which is which?

The data helped us hone in on your location.

 

After scouring satellite and streetview maps, we finally found the house. Who lived there until 2018?

Oh, look, it’s Logan Smith and his wife!

His wife was the one who suggested the pseudonym of ‘Levi’ for his internet activity, according to the 4chan FAQ thread.

 

 

 

Confirming UTR attendance: did ‘Levi’ actually attend Unite the Right?

PNN posted a tweet while at UTR; it was archived 23 hours later. We found a Unix epoch timestamp in the page source code, converted it to UTC (14:46:06), then to EDT: 10:46:06 am. In photos taken at that time we found Logan, and several exposed watches confirmed the time.

 

 

 

Having confirmed the time of the tweet, we found the exact location of Richard Spencer in the park, which then led us to video footage of ‘Levi’, i.e., Logan, taking the photo and tweeting it out to @polNewsForever (which was banned the next day).

Here are some photos for your album, Logan. Next time you want to promote the nazi invasion of an American town or city, or any other place on the planet… Don’t!

 

 

 

Just as PNN boosted UTR, others boosted PNN (and thus UTR). One such account was @TEN_GOP, which was outed in October 2018 as a Russian troll farm operated by the so-called ‘Internet Research Agency‘.

 

 

 

 

In mid-2018, the Smiths moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma, where Logan was continuing school at Oklahoma State University.

On his public Instagram, Logan posted photos of his silver Chevy Cruze, the car he drove to UTR.

 

 

 

In October 2018, Robert Bowers, a neo-nazi who followed /pol News Network on Gab — attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 people and injuring 6 others.

 

 

 

In July 2021, Logan completed his Master’s degree, and promptly embarked on his PhD. He also started seeing real patients in therapy sessions, although currently under the supervision of licensed practitioners… until he finishes his PhD.

What could go wrong?

 

 

Logan is also a ‘space bro’. His particular interest seems to be, wait for it… SPACE MADNESS. In particular, he’s researching ‘Automated Psychotherapy‘, the autonomous screening of individuals & application of ‘corrective therapy’.

 

 

Logan Michael Smith, who knew how to identify vulnerable people, what triggers suicidal ideation, and is researching automated psychotherapy, appeared to still be posting hate memes to the remnants of his PNN social media empire — namely on Gab, as recently as 2023.

 

CONTENT WARNING: Here are some examples of what /pol/ News Network had been posting every day between 2016 and mid 2023. It was an endless stream of racism, bigotry, transphobia, antisemitism & misogyny. This stream of hate becomes an ideology for adherents, who then manifest it in decision making and actions. We saw this come into practice when one of his own followers killed eleven people in a mass shooting.

 

 

 

 

Given what we now know, who do you think wrote this LinkedIn bio? Dr. Logan Smith, or Mr. ‘Levi’?

Logan will soon be able to see patients unsupervised — many in a state of distress and struggling with suicidal thoughts.