Aggressive Online Response to Hate Speech and Extremists Post-Charlottesville

Bloomberg looks at the tidal wave of tech companies issues responses to racial intolerance.

August 16, 2017: Spotify the Latest to Distance White Supremacist Affiliation

A 2014 Southern Poverty Law Center investigation highlighted 27 music groups as “hate bands.” With the list gaining attention after the tragic turn of events in Charlottesville, Spotify took action and removed these acts from its line-up.

August 15, 2017: GoDaddy, Google, Scaleway Block Neo-Nazi Website The Daily Stormer

In an interview on CNBC, GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving said the domain name provider cut ties with ne0-Nazi website The Daily Stormer for “inciting violence” in the aftermath of the deadly protests in Charlottesville. A post on The Daily Stormer attacked Heather Heyer who was killed when a car plowed into her group of counterprotesters. Irving said this post crossed the line from free speech which GoDaddy has to protect, “regardless of whether speech is hateful, bigoted, racist, ignorant, tasteless” to words that could lead to further violence. When The Daily Stormer tried to register its domain name with Google, they were denied as well. “We are canceling Daily Stormer’s registration with Google Domains for violating our terms of service,” a Google spokesman said. Its hosting company, France’s Scaleway, also shut down the site which has since gotten a Russian domain name.

With the events that happened in Charlottesville, we felt the Daily Stormer went too far, crossed the line: GoDaddy CEO from CNBC.

August 15, 2017: Participants in Charlottesville Protests Outed and “Shamed” Online

The “Yes, You’re Racist” Twitter account has been in overdrive since the deadly Charlottesville protests identifying and posting pictures of white supremacists. One such protestor, Cole White, “voluntarily resigned” from a Berkeley, Calif., hot dog restaurant, which stated “We do respect our employees’ right to their opinions. They are free to make their own choices but must accept the responsibilities of those choices.” But some social media experts are expressing caution in a free for all online shaming where mistakes can be made in identification and lives quickly ruined.

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