http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2017/08/18/digital-rights-group-warns-that-googles-stance-on-neo-nazis-is-dangerous.html
Digital rights group warns that Google's stance on neo-Nazis is 'dangerous'
Published August 18, 2017
The Electronic Frontier Foundation warns the decision by Google, GoDaddy and
Cloudflare to expel white supremacist site the Daily Stormer from their
services has worrying free speech implications.
In a statement released Thursday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
warned the tech companies’ move could set a precedent. “We strongly believe
that what GoDaddy, Google, and Cloudflare did here was dangerous,” it said.
“That’s because, even when the facts are the most vile, we must remain vigilant
when platforms exercise these rights. Because Internet intermediaries,
especially those with few competitors, control so much online speech, the
consequences of their decisions have far-reaching impacts on speech around the
world.”
Domain provider GoDaddy expelled the Daily Stormer on Aug. 14 after an online
post on the white supremacist site disparaging Heather Heyer, who was killed
during protests in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. Daily Stormer registered its
domain with Google Domains, but was promptly expelled by the tech giant.
Cloudflare, which provides distributed domain name server services, terminated
the Daily Stormer’s account Wednesday.
The EFF condemned “hateful violence and aggression” in its statement but
cautioned that “we must also recognize that on the Internet, any tactic used
now to silence neo-Nazis will soon be used against others, including people
whose opinions we agree with.”
In an email to Fox News, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said that the company
“wholeheartedly” agrees with the risks outlined by the EFF, and highlighted
Cloudflare’s blog post on the Daily Stormer’s removal. In the blog, Prince
acknowledged the dangers of censoring, but explained the circumstances
surrounding the termination of the Daily Stormer’s account.
“Our terms of service reserve the right for us to terminate users of our
network at our sole discretion,” he wrote. “The tipping point for us making
this decision was that the team behind Daily Stormer made the claim that we
were secretly supporters of their ideology.”
In an email obtained by Gizmodo, Prince wrote an email to his employees,
explaining his decision, noting: "the people behind the Daily Stormer are
assholes and I’d had enough."
Google declined to make additional comment beyond the statement it released
earlier this week. On Monday, Google explained that it cancelled Daily
Stormer’s registration with Google Domains for violating the tech giant’s terms
of service.
GoDaddy has yet to respond to a request for comment on this story from Fox News.
Users of the Daily Stormer website have reportedly moved to a dark web version
of the site.
The dark web, or darknet, refers to private networks built from connections
between trusted peers using unconventional protocols. Dark web is just one part
of what is known as deep web – a vast network that is not indexed by search
engines such as Google and Bing.
