Charlottesville attack puts a spotlight on online hate – The Verge

Two months ago, the internet tried to banish Nazis. No one knows if it worked

2017-10-09T09:12:58-04:00

On August 11th and 12th, the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally marked a turning point in modern American politics, where far-right groups felt empowered to gather and openly support white supremacy. The event ended with the alleged murder of protester Heather Heyer.

The rally also marked a turning point for the internet. A central rallying point for the white nationalist "alt-right," the Daily Stormer website was scrubbed from multiple platforms after mocking Heyer's death. In quick succession, tech companies that long preserved a reputation for neutrality became quick to ban and condemn hate groups, even ones that had operated openly t …

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The Daily Stormer switched addresses and got pushed off the web a second time

2017-08-24T17:49:58-04:00

The neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer briefly returned to the web today, using a new URL and a string of new hosts to dodge the bans that took it off the internet last week. The site reappeared this morning at the address Punishedstormer.com, apparently using Dreamhost as both a host and DNS provider.

Shortly after the new site became public, Anonymous groups began a denial-of-service attack against it, targeting the Dreamhost DNS infrastructure that makes the site accessible to the rest of the web. The result was nearly two hours of intermittent downtime for the countless sites using Dreamhost's DNS infrastructure. Dreamhost announced the proble …

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Why the alt-right can’t build an alt-internet

2017-08-21T16:55:49-04:00

After the August 12th hate rally in Charlottesville, online platforms that have long tolerated or ignored white supremacists are very publicly kicking them off. The crackdown spans a broad range of sites and apps, some of which are household names, like Uber, Facebook, and Spotify. But some of the most notable companies to purge their ranks are those we don't often consider: the web hosts, domain registrars, and other services that you need to put a website on the internet. Over the past week, GoDaddy, Cloudflare, and Google - to name a few - have been playing hot potato with the major neo-Nazi news site Daily Stormer, taking it offline seve …

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Apple is now taking donations for the Southern Poverty Law Center through iTunes

2017-08-20T11:15:01-04:00

Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook sent an e-mail to company employees, stating his disagreement with President Donald Trump's comments concerning the violence in Charlottesville. He indicated that Apple will make a $2 million donation to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, and said that users would soon be able to donate directly to the SPLC through iTunes. That feature has just gone live.

A new page appears on the iTunes desktop and mobile storefronts, and can be found under the New Music, Hot Tracks, and Recent Releases sections. Users can donate in $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, and $200 increments.

The page states tha …

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Namecheap has taken down Neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer

2017-08-20T10:42:42-04:00

Neo-nazi news site Daily Stormer will need to find another host after Namecheap announced on Sunday that it will not host the site. The hate site was registered with the company on Friday after being kicked off of GoDaddy, Google Domains, and a Russian registrar earlier this week before being shut down by each.

On Friday, the company's Twitter account began replying to users about the registration, saying its legal and abuse department was "already looking into it."

Hi, thanks a lot for reporting this case. Our Legal&Abuse department is already looking into it.
- Namecheap.com (@Namecheap) August 18, 2017

In a blog post, Namecheap CEO Rich …

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GoFundMe raises nearly $1M for the victims of Charlottesville

2017-08-17T20:00:32-04:00

Crowdfunding platform GoFundMe says it has raised more than $800,000 for the victims of violence stemming from the Charlottesville, Virginia rally this past weekend, according to The Washington Post. The money has been raised for the medical expenses of counter-protestors who were injured by white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups who were marching in the "Unite the Right" event dedicated to preserving a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The rally resulted in the death of one woman, Heather Heyer, and injuries to dozens of other counter-protestors.

GoFundMe banned campaigns to raise funds for the Charlottesville murd …

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Uber says it will continue to ban white supremacists from its platform

2017-08-17T18:19:13-04:00

Uber sent a message to drivers and company employees earlier today condemning the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia and pledging to ban white supremacists and other members of hate groups from its platform. "There is simply no place for this type of bigotry, discrimination, and hate," Regional General Manager Meghan Verena Joyce wrote in a message that was posted publicly on Twitter by New York Times journalist Mike Isaac.

The message goes on to say that Uber will "act swiftly and decisively to uphold our Community Guidelines, including our policy against discrimination of any kind - that includes banning people from the app." This is U …

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Tech companies are rushing to ban hate groups, but plenty remain

2017-08-17T16:20:26-04:00

In recent days, web services and platforms have rushed to drop any clients tied to hate groups or other extremists, hoping to cut any apparent links to the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia. Apple Pay and PayPal have changed policies to stop payments to white nationalist groups, Facebook has stepped up anti-violence enforcement, and the notorious neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer has been kicked off the internet entirely, unable to secure a registrar.

At the same time, the rush to clean up platforms has raised new questions about the appropriate tactics for censoring content - and answers have been hard to find. Even where c …

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Read Apple CEO’s email denouncing white supremacism in Charlottesville

2017-08-16T23:47:44-04:00

Much like politicians, tech company CEOs are nowadays expected to take a position on the big social issues facing their country, and Apple boss Tim Cook has been the latest to join the fray with an email sent to all global employees of the company on Wednesday night, which was obtained by Recode. In the email, Cook provides a strong response to the violence on display in Charlottesville over the weekend, and he goes on to make an unequivocal call about who was in the wrong.

"I disagree with the president and others who believe that there is a moral equivalence between white supremacists and Nazis, and those who oppose them by standing up fo …

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Apple Pay is dropping support for websites that sell white supremacist merchandise

2017-08-16T18:51:44-04:00

Apple has disabled its payments system on websites that sell white supremacist and Nazi-themed merchandise, according to a report from BuzzFeed News. The move, which follows the violent white nationalist attacks in Charlottesville, Virginia this past weekend that left one counter-protestor dead, means three websites that peddle in "White Pride" t-shirts and accessories with Nazi logos can no longer process payments through Apple Pay.

The websites, including AmericanVikings.com and VinlandClothing.com (the third site, called Behold Barbarity, has already gone offline), were found to be in violation of Apple's "acceptable use guidelines." Tho …

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