A lot of us wrung our hands when the noxious Daily Stormer popped back on the regular Internet on Friday. But in the wee hours of Sunday morning, Daily Stormer has been forced back onto the dark web after being turfed by its latest domain registrar, Namecheap.
Sometime after mj55 hit publish on her diary revealing Andrew Anglin and friends had returned, Namecheap founder and CEO Richard Kirkendall made a post on Namecheap’s official blog saying that he had terminated the “dailystormer.lol” domain. The reason? Numerous posts on the site went well beyond even what the strongest protections of free speech would protect.
I’ve examined the website carefully. It purports to disclaim violence. But, these words are profoundly hollow as the actual text supports both viewpoints as well as groups that specifically promote violence. As an example: “It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in mathematics to understand that White men + pride + organization = Jews being stuffed into ovens.”
This statement clearly incites violence and endorses wholesale eradication of Jews through genocide championed by the Nazis. Daily Stormer in all its content advocates that proud white men organize themselves. It also presents the inevitable consequence of the organization of white men and their pride: “jews being stuffed into ovens.” This alone is a drastic departure from traditional freedom of speech principles and endorsement of a very violent eventuality. Based on this statement alone, the site should be legitimately shut down as the speech constitutes an incitement of violence.
Kirkendall went on to say that “from a Constitutional perspective as well as a legal perspective,” a domain registrar would be well within its rights to terminate a domain if it is being used to peddle hate speech and incite violent behavior. He rightly pointed out that “there is a line where free speech ends and incitement begins”—and Daily Stormer crossed it.
Looks like Anglin is running out of options to stay online.