These “alt” groups valued highly the right to free speech while shunning hierarchy of any kind. (The apocryphal idea that “alt” stands for “anarchists, lunatics and terrorists” persists for a reason.) Some “alt” newsgroups were targeted by politicians for their associations with illegal entities, namely child pornographers. But others were simply places for little-known recommendations: alt.movies.silent, alt.movies.hitchcock, alt.movies.kubrick, etc.
Huffington Post, “A Brief History Of America’s Most Controversial Prefix”
