GoDaddy Inc. Internet domain registrar and web hosting giant have decided to cut ties with the neo-nazi website “DailyStormer” earlier today. The decision came after a series of complaints by Internet users citing an article published on the site insulting Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old resident of Charlottesville, Virginia who was killed by James Alex Fields Jr, a white supremacist by smashing his car into the crowd protesting against the Unite the Right rally.
The article was published by DailyStormer’s owner Andrew Anglin who wrote that “Heather Heyer: Woman killed in road rage incident was a fat, childless 32-year-old slut.” The article went on to insult Heyer’s body shape and show complete support for the killer James Alex Fields Jr who has been charged with second-degree murder.
Once the article was published, it received a series of criticism after Amy Siskind, founder of The New Agenda website Tweeted to GoDaddy about the article since the site was registered with the company. In reply, GoDaddy confirmed that it had informed The DailyStormer to find another domain provider as the site has violated the company’s terms of service.
We informed The Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service.
— GoDaddy (@GoDaddy) August 14, 2017
Marco Rubio, US Senator for the state of Florida Tweeted that it was “a terror attack by white supremacists.”
Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 12, 2017
At the time of publishing this article, DailyStormer was online since it has a few hours left to move on to other domain providers. However, the latest article on the site claims it has been taken over by online hacktivist group Anonymous which seems like a failed hoax planned by its owner to divert attention from the issue.
By banning a neo-nazi website, GoDaddy has joined the list of companies who have waged war against Alt-Right, white supremacists, and other neo-nazi groups. Those companies include Airbnb, PayPal, GoFundMe, YouCaring, and Patreon.
BuzzFeed reported that for last five months, PayPal had banned the accounts of several prominent people and groups that promote far-right politics. While crowdfunding platforms like YouCaring, GoFundMe and Patreon have also cut fundraisers for alt-right–associated causes and people.
Gizmodo reported that Airbnb also deleted accounts of its far-right members it believes to be staying in Charlottesville for the rally using the company’s service.
Remember, the online hacktivist Anonymous and its counterpart NWH hackers also protested against the white supremacists’ rally. To mark their protest, hacktivists conducted a series of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on Charlottesville city and some neo-nazi websites forcing them to go offline.
