News

Anonymous May Have Taken Over A White Supremacist Website

by Lani Seelinger
Denis Doyle/Getty Images News/Getty Images

It's never a good thing when the whole country's talking about a neo-Nazi website. However, America's most prominent neo-Nazi website, The Daily Stormer, is now facing some major issues because of its hateful articles. It appears as though the famous hacking group Anonymous might have taken control of The Daily Stormer, after the website's host, GoDaddy, informed them that they would have to change providers. This has yet to be confirmed, though, so it could simply be that the white supremacist site is merely faking the Anonymous takeover as a publicity stunt.

Although the situation is still very unclear, it seems as though The Daily Stormer went one provocation too far when it posted a hate-filled article about Heather Heyer, the woman killed in the Charlottesville protests when a car purposefully plowed into a group of people counter-protesting the white supremacist rally taking place. Amy Siskind, who describes herself as the "President and Co-Founder of The New Agenda. Advocate for women's, LGBTQ rights, equality" on Twitter, apparently noticed the article and then tweeted a screenshot of it to GoDaddy, the web host where The Daily Stormer was based. She asked that GoDaddy do something about the hate being spewed from its servers, and GoDaddy responded by saying that it had ordered the neo-Nazi website to find another provider.

As of early Monday morning, then, CBS News reported that The Daily Stormer was still active, but that there was a claim on the website saying that "this site is now under the control of Anonymous." What makes the story less clear-cut, however, is that neither The Daily Stormer nor Anonymous has confirmed the attack anywhere besides the statement posted directly on the Daily Stormer website.

GoDaddy did confirm its role in the events to The Arizona Republic, so the Daily Stormer will have to move to another provider if it wishes to continue its operations. If Anonymous has indeed taken it over, the producers of the anti-Semitic, white supremacist website will have a difficult task on its hands. In the statement posted on the website, Anonymous (or those claiming to be Anonymous) said that they would leave the website up for 24 hours “so the world can witness the hate” and then they would take it down forever. “This evil cannot be allowed to stand," the statement also said. “The events of Charlottesville alerted us to the need for immediate action.”

Anonymous, the world-famous hacking group whose representatives always sport Guy Fawkes masks to conceal their identities, has carried out some pretty impressive hacks in the past — so this would seem to be well within their capabilities. However, the move could also be The Daily Stormer simply trying to draw attention to itself and draw contributions from its supporters. Until Anonymous confirms it on another platform, nothing is sure.