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‘The Daily Stormer’: GoDaddy Parts Ways With Controversial Blog, But Is Anonymous ‘Hack’ Legitimate?

By Lorenzo Tanos
Published on: 23:13 PST, Aug 13, 2017

Domain registrar GoDaddy has officially parted ways with The Daily Stormer, following reports that the site was making hateful comments about Charlottesville attack victim Heather Heyer. And while the controversial website remains online as of this writing, reports have also suggested that the site might have been taken over by Anonymous, with the hacking crew seemingly declaring the “end of hate” in a post announcing the apparent takeover.

According to TechCrunch, GoDaddy announced its decision in response to The New Agenda founder Amy Siskind’s tweet asking the company to ban The Daily Stormer for its piece on Heather Heyer. The 32-year-old Heyer was part of a group protesting the Unite the Right rally on Saturday, when a car plowed into the crowd, killing the Charlottesville-based paralegal and injuring several others.

In response to the article, GoDaddy stated that it is giving The Daily Stormer 24 hours to find a new domain or get canceled, due to violations of the provider’s terms of service.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, The Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin wrote about Heyer’s death on Sunday, referring to the Charlottesville victim as an “overweight slob with no children” and the “definition of uselessness,” among other scathing insults. James Fields Jr., the man who allegedly drove the car that killed Heyer, was described in that article as a “hardcore player” with a “cool demeanor.”

Dan Race, a spokesman for GoDaddy, explained the company’s decision to cut ties with The Daily Stormer in an emailed statement to the New York Daily News.

“Given this latest article comes on the immediate heels of a violent attack, we believe this type of article could incite additional violence, which violates our terms of service.”

Not long after the above announcement from GoDaddy, The Daily Stormer appeared to have gotten hacked by the hacktivist group Anonymous, with a new post claiming that the site was taken over “in the name of Heather Heyer, a victim of white supremacist terrorism.” The post came with images of men wearing Anonymous’ signature Guy Fawkes masks and further warned that the hacking crew has “all of the details” on The Daily Stormer’s servers, and will be sending its “allies in Lagos” to pay Andrew Anglin a visit in person.

As further noted by the supposed post from Anonymous, the site will remain up for the next 24 hours, allowing viewers to “witness the hate” before The Daily Stormer gets shut down “permanently.”

Although the hack appears at first glance to be the work of Anonymous, the above post didn’t make mention of GoDaddy’s 24-hour ultimatum to The Daily Stormer. And, as further observed by the New York Daily News, the offending Heather Heyer article remained on the website, despite Anonymous’ supposed claim that the takeover was done in her honor.

A new report from Crave Online adds to the concerns regarding the legitimacy of the alleged Anonymous hack. The publication cited a recent tweet from @YourAnonNews, an account said to be the largest one affiliated with the hacking collective. In the tweet, Anonymous suggested that the “hack” may have been a ploy orchestrated by The Daily Stormer following GoDaddy’s ultimatum, and a justification should the site’s administrators be unable to find a new host.

Further tweets from @YourAnonNews pointed out other holes in the purported hacking attempt, specifically the fact that The Daily Stormer’s old content was still left up by a “united force of elite hackers.”

As of this writing, GoDaddy has yet to remove The Daily Stormer from its servers, but based on the timeline of its earlier reply to The New Agenda’s Amy Siskind, the site may likely go offline on Monday night.

[Featured Image by NeydtStock/Shutterstock]

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