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Russia drops US neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer from .ru domain

F

fluffydelusions

Member
MOSCOW (AFP) -
Russia's internet watchdog said Thursday it had called on a domain provider to stop hosting the website of a US white supremacist group under fire following the Charlottesville violence.

The Daily Stormer, which helped organise last weekend's rally that led to deadly clashes with counter-demonstrators, was dropped by its US service providers earlier this week.

But it had registered in Russia at the address dailystormer.ru.

On Wednesday the website's page on VK.com, a popular Russian social media network, announced they were "back on the normie web," linking to their new Russian website.

AFP was able to access the page briefly on Wednesday evening, where one headline read "A tale of true friendship: Trump called Putin to get us a new domain!"

But within hours, the page was down again, and Russia's internet watchdog on Thursday explained it had made the request to take it offline.

Alexander Zharov, the head of Russia's telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor, said in a statement that they had asked the domain registrar Ru-center to "quickly" stop hosting it.

The website "promotes neo-Nazi ideology and fuels racist, nationalist and other types of hatred," he added in the statement.

On Sunday, US web hosts GoDaddy evicted the site following hate speech against the young woman protester killed by a suspected Nazi sympathiser at Charlottesville. The site switched to Google domains, but was dropped from that service Monday.

Daily Stormer's VK page was still active on Thursday, giving no indication of what the website's creators plan to do next.

Dropping the hosting of a whole website on such a request is unusual but many US white supremacy groups have registered on Russian social networks like VK which they use with little oversight, said Alexander Verkhovsky, director of Moscow-based SOVA centre which tracks nationalism and xenophobia in Russia.

"They need a large platform that they can hide on and which has weak control," Verkhovsky said. "It's very convenient."

"They are not being deliberately encouraged here but nobody could care less about them, they are not from here, (Russian) people don't read in English and they don't write complaints to the administrators," he added.

VK also hosts other groups that organised the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

They include the National Socialist Movement and the League of the South, which launched its page there last month, saying it was "because of increased censorship on Facebook".
Click to expand...

http://www.france24.com/en/20170817-russia-drops-us-neo-nazi-site-ru-domain
 
R

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
Of course they do. The Soviets lost more men than the Allies in the eastern front. They hate Nazis more than anyone in the world.
 
W

Woorloog

Banned
LakeEarth said:
Them getting a Russian domain always made no sense to me. They are not big fans of Nazis.
Click to expand...

Russians? They (allegedly but probably) fund neo-nazis and other such groups in Europe and likely elsewhere in their sphere of interest.
And oddly, nazism is a thing in Russia... well, maybe not mainstream but still. Just google "russia nazi" and check image search. (Gets doubly weird when combined with Soviet symbolism and/or colors.)

This despite their past. Go figure.

As it is, i find them dropping a domain weird... but guess it is a matter of controlling public perception.
 
T

The Albatross

Member
I did think it's really odd that a NeoNazi website would find a home in Russia where, 70 years ago, tens of millions of Russians died fighting the Old Nazis. The PaleoNazis if you will.

AJLma said:
.ru typically doesn't shut a damn thing down, so this is hilarious.
Click to expand...

Well, that's... not true. The Kremlin has shut down all free press in the country.

They just don't shut down things like this.
 
J

- J - D -

Member
Sounds more like a ploy to win favor among the less extreme of the US Right and/or moderates to me.

But whatever, fuck Nazis all the same.
 
M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
LakeEarth said:
Them getting a Russian domain always made no sense to me. They are not big fans of Nazis.
Click to expand...
Hah, no kidding. My own site is blocked in Russia because it lists information about music bands, some of which happen to be NS. Apparently you don't even need to promote NS stuff to get blocked in Russia, even documenting it is enough. lol
 
R

RumblingRosco

Member
Given the shit Russia went through beating down the Nazis the first time, I'm not surprised by this. Good on Russia. I may not necessarily trust the Russian government as much as I wish I could, I'll give them props for this.
 
C

Choppasmith

Member
Amazing. Enjoying the schadenfreud. I would say I'd love to see them whine about this development, but... they don't really have much left in options to get the word out, right?
 
T

The Kree

Banned
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