Prominent neo-Nazi news site the Daily Stormer has apparently moved to the dark web after being denied domain registration from Google and GoDaddy. The site’s status page tweeted a link to the new site, which can only be accessed through the anonymizing service Tor. (Neo-Nazi troll Andrew “weev” Auernheimer, who is banned from Twitter, also posted the link on Gab.ai.) As Motherboard noted this morning, this means that it no longer has to rely on a major domain registrar, protecting it from a rare online crackdown on white supremacism.
Neo-Nazi site moves to dark web after GoDaddy and Google bans
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
The Stormer’s original registrar, GoDaddy, banned the site yesterday, after it posted an article celebrating the alleged murder of protester Heather Heyer during this weekend’s white supremacist rally. After a plausibly fabricated takeover by hacking collective Anonymous, it then moved briefly to Google Domains, before being kicked off both Domains and YouTube for unspecified terms-of-service violations.
Hunchly
Google and GoDaddy are two of several tech companies that appear to be taking a harder line on the white nationalist alt-right movement after Heyer’s death. Facebook has removed links to the Daily Stormer article, chat app Discord has banned it and other alt-right channels, and Airbnb’s CEO said that the alt-right and white supremacy had “no place in this world,” or on Airbnb. However, white supremacism isn’t new to the dark web — researchers at online investigation site Hunchly noted that the Stormer’s new address also percolated through an existing alt-right site.
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