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WHITE EXTREMISTS ARE having doors to the internet slammed on efforts to promote violent and bigoted agendas.
Internet titans that have contorted to balance free speech with odious content were standing firm this week against being used to glorify killing in the name of race or eliminating those who oppose that kind of ideology.
A consistent message from Silicon Valley firms contacted by AFP was that advocating violence and bigotry violated clearly-outlined terms of service, resulting in accounts being closed or content being removed.
Just a day after a woman protesting racism was killed at a white supremacist rally, major website hosting service GoDaddy cancelled the domain name of Daily Stormer, which helped organise the event in Charlottesville to protest the removal of a Confederate statue.
The ‘Unite the Right’ rally turned tragic when a suspected Nazi sympathiser, James Fields, plowed his car into a crowd of anti-racism protesters, leaving a woman dead and 19 others injured.
“We generally do not take action on complaints that would constitute censorship of content and that represents the exercise of freedom of speech and expression on the Internet,” GoDaddy digital crimes unit director Ben Butler said in an email statement.
In our determination, especially given the tragic events in Charlottesville, Dailystormer.com crossed the line and encouraged and promoted violence.
Daily Stormer switched the website to Google Domains. The registration was quickly cancelled for “violating our terms of service,” a Google spokesperson told AFP.
The neo-Nazi website also apparently came under attack by hacker group Anonymous and retreated to a ‘dark’ portion of the internet where websites lurk out of sight from online search engines.
Leading social network Facebook and famously free-wheeling online conversation forum Reddit have also taken action against accounts or content in the aftermath of the deadly Charlottesville rally.
Physical Removal tossed
Reddit banned a ‘Physical Removal’ community advocating that Democrats be “removed from society” in the real world. Posts at Physical Removal had mocked the woman killed at the rally.
“We strive to be a welcoming, open platform for all by trusting our users to maintain an environment that cultivates genuine conversation and adheres to our content policy,” a Reddit spokesperson told AFP.
We have banned /r/Physical_Removal due to violations of the terms of our content policy.
Facebook has a policy of removing material that attacks people based on race or that praises violent acts or hate groups.
Facebook removed shared posts of a Daily Stormer article denigrating the killed anti-racism demonstrator, unless they had captions condemning the content.
The social network applied the same rules used to remove content posted by terrorist groups.
A ‘Unite the Right’ event page was removed from Facebook over the weekend after it became clear that rather than simply promoting an event it was promoting real-world harm.
Other accounts or pages removed from Facebook or its photo-message service Instagram included Right Wing Death Squad; Genuine Donald Trump, and Radical Agenda: Common Sense Extremism.”
Facebook and Instagram personal profiles of vocal white supremacist Christopher Cantwell have also been removed.
Not playing
This week a free Discord chat service that is popular with gamers shut down accounts evidently being used for violent white nationalist agendas instead of video game play.
Online chat rooms openly praised Adolph Hitler and Nazi genocide, and were used to help organise the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, according to a New York Times report.
Internet fund-raising and payment platforms have declined to be used by white-supremacists seeking to solicit funds for Fields, who is in jail facing charges including murder.
Online financial transactions service PayPal has a longstanding rule against being used for physical harm or racial intolerance.
“We work to ensure that our services are not used to accept payments or donations for activities that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance,” PayPal senior vice president of corporate affairs Franz Paasche said in a blog post.
This includes organisations that advocate racist views, such as the KKK, white supremacist groups or Nazi groups.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump found himself in the eye of a political storm this week after his remarks on the unrest in Charlottesville.
His assessment that there was “blame on both sides” for the deadly melee sparked a rare comment on current affairs from his two Republican predecessors, George Bush and George W Bush, who called on Americans to “reject racial bigotry… in all its forms”.
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If only they were so quick with Islamic state material..
@Eóghain Pádraig MacEochagáin: they are trying. It’s difficult, like here for example, when someone consistently spouts hateful rhetoric they get deleted only to come back under a different name. Their is worth a read: https://www.wired.com/2015/11/facebook-and-twitter-face-tough-choices-as-isis-exploits-social-media/
@Eóghain Pádraig MacEochagáin: That’s racist you know….
They say that on TV.
This is a start, now start banning pro Islamic state sites in the name of equality & safety.
@Matt Donovan: That has been happening across twitter, facebook & youtube for 2 years now
This is a more logical move to prevent the spread of a phoney and dangerous belief than removing historic statues which were placed there for different reasons at the time and are now part of history and heritage.
@winston smith: yeah leave the statues of the men who believed black people and their children should property of white men because they were superior least the black people today forget about what happened to their ancestors in their millions. The white men today might also get a bit upset.
No Deborah, there was a war of attrition, the reasoning is always blurred, but these generals fought for their people at the time and in appreciation the statues were erected in their honor. I don’t particularly appreciate the many statues of the virgin Mary/Jesus dotted around the country, mostly without planning, but I wouldn’t ask for their removal despite the many crimes committed by the church.
@Deborah Behan: so George Washington and the other slave owning founding fathers?
@Deborah Behan: Oh yeah, so why does nobody have a problem with monuments to the Founding Fathers, many of whom were themselves slave owners?
@Jason Power: Beat me to it!
@winston smith: The statues were not erected “at the time”, they went up in three waves.
The first at the time the Jim Crow laws were being enacted and during the “strange fruit” lynchings.. 1886–1920
Then at the time of widespread American naziism during the 1930′s and 40,s.
Then during the civil rights era from 1955-65.
The statues went up to glorify white supremecists like Lee because they stood for segregation and believed blacks were inferior.
Do some learning its handy.
Mr. O Sullivan, you need to read what’s in front of you… these generals fought for their people ‘at the time’…I never said the statues were erected ‘at the time’…that would be silly really without even reading up on it…defeated and subjugated people aren’t in a position to erect statues to their fallen leaders… this would obviously follow after a period and when confidence returned.
@Harry Whitehead: The founding fathers who owned slaves did not fight to uphold slavery, in fact many of them fought against slavery ferociously.
Remember that this was a time in history where as a rich man you could inherit many slaves and emancipating them was very difficult.
There is a *clear* distinction between people like Jefferson and Washington who were abolitionists at heart and someone like Lee, who thought slavery was necessary, and whose forces enslaved free blacks during settlement raids with his knowledge.
@winston smith: Oh so you didn’t write the following,
“This is a more logical move to prevent the spread of a phoney and dangerous belief than removing historic statues which were placed there for different reasons at the time and are now part of history and heritage”
I call you a liar….
Deleting accounts won’t help, they’ll just use it as argument that the left is imposing censorship which technically it is.
@Shawn O’Ceallaghan: no if you abide by the rules you get to use the service. If you break the rules you don’t. It’s not hard to understand.
@Shawn O’Ceallaghan: it’s not censorship, it’s abiding by the terms and conditions.
@Deborah Behan: so censorship.
@Shawn O’Ceallaghan: Racism and child porn should be censored.
Great news, maybe The Journal could adopt a more robust approach to racist commenters who persistently incite hatred.
@Atheos Euripides: LOL….Well if that happens you will be at the top of that list, you Christophobe and Jihadi lover. As Racism, Antisemitism and Bigotry are core principles of these groups
Trump should banned from twitter
Removing Islamic state arrahh!!
They have such good ratings. Doesn’t everybody wants to see * being chopped off? I couldn’t imagine a sitcom evening without a nice long monologue detailing the glories of joining up or checking out the newest products on the suicide belt market. And the best part – all those virgins waiting around the corner… in paradise
Healy rae next
Too many people using Irish names on the journal and not Irish.
@realDonaldTrump is still active? It must a be work in progress.
@⚡ Seánie ⚡:
Trump is probably one of the few reasons why Twitter hasn’t died yet. Their growth in active users has completely stopped which is a terrible sign for a social media platform.
@Thought for Food: says you…. Using your twitter account.
have your say