Yahoo – AFP,
Glenn CHAPMAN, August 17, 2017
 |
| A demonstrator holds a sign in front of the White House during a vigil in response to the death of a counter-protestor in the August 12 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (AFP Photo/ZACH GIBSON) |
San
Francisco (AFP) - 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 organize the event in Charlottesville to protest removal of a
Confederate statue.
The 'Unite
the Right' rally turned tragic when a suspected Nazi sympathizer, 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 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
A free
Discord chat service popular with gamers this week 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
organize 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 organizations 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
Wednesday after his stunning 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."
Trump's
defiant statements, delivered Tuesday in a caustic way at Trump Tower and
immediately hailed by a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan for their
"courage," left many lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats alike,
speechless.
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