Russian watchdog calls for blocking neo-Nazi website
Daily Stormer has already been booted off GoDaddy, Google
Russia’s media watchdog said Thursday it requested that a Russian Internet provider boot The Daily Stormer off its website because the American group spews neo-Nazi propaganda and incites racial and national hatred.
The Daily Stormer took refuge at RU-CENTER, which provided the Russian domain, after being kicked off American servers by GoDaddy and Google following the uproar over white nationalist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va.
Officially, Roskomnadzor, the watchdog organization, can shut down websites on charges of extremism only after approval from Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office, The Moscow Times reported, but its request carries considerable weight.
Alexander Zharov, head of Roskomnadzor, told the Interfax news agency the watchdog asked RU-CENTER to stop servicing the website because “The Daily Stormer propagandizes a neo-Nazi ideology, inciting racial, national and other social hatred.”
The original U.S. domain was discontinued Monday, and the site retreated to the Dark Web, where content is not indexed by search engines.
GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving told CNBC there is a “very fine line between making sure we’re not being a censor and making sure we’re acting in a responsible manner.”
“But when the line gets crossed and that speech starts to incite violence, then we have a responsibility to take that down,” Irving said.
GoDaddy took action after the website verbally attacked Heather Heyer, who was killed during the Charlottesville demonstrations when a driver ran a car into a crowd of people. The website called her “fat” and said, “Most people are glad she is dead, as she is the definition of uselessness.”
After GoDaddy and Google booted the site, other tech companies providing services to The Daily Stormer followed suit. Zoho, which provides email services, and Sendgrid, an email marketing company, said they would no longer serve The Daily Stormer.
Discord and Discourse, companies that run open-source chatrooms used by Daily Stormer followers, said on Twitter they had kicked the site off, too.
Tech companies’ rejection of any association with The Daily Stormer, which published articles grouped under headings such as “Jewish Problem” and “Race War,” represents a stronger re- sponse from the industry on domestic hate groups.
Any removal from the public eye may be be short-lived.
As soon as The Daily Stormer gets kicked off one platform, its founders find another or build their own. Their incentive: Although the Dark Web offers a way to operate without the nod from a domain registration company such as Google, the site can’t reach as many readers.
“They don’t want to hide, they want to recruit,” said Linda Woolf, a Webster University professor in Missouri studying hate groups online. “They’ll do whatever they can to reach people.”