Proud Boys Website, Online Store Dropped by Web Host

Authored by thewrap.com and submitted by AdamCannon
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The Proud Boys, an FBI-designated extremist group with ties to white nationalism, lost its web host for the group’s website and online store following efforts from advocacy group Color of Change.

“After a heads up from Color of Change, we notified one of our customers — a website hoster — who then took action. The websites in question were not Google Cloud customers,” a Google Cloud spokesperson told TheWrap on Friday.

As of Friday evening, however, the extremist group appears to have gotten a new host for its website, but the online store is not currently taking orders and a note to online customers says that the “migration to a new webhost has taken longer than anticipated.”

Also Read: Vice Media CEO Assures Staff That Founder Gavin McInnes, Who Also Launched Proud Boys, Has No Ties to Company Anymore

Still, Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change, praised Google for its “actions to block the Proud Boys website and online store” but called on “Google’s peers to follow suit.”

“Big Tech companies have the power and resources to take meaningful action, but instead turn to last-minute, knee-jerk reactions that often fail to prevent further violent harm or even death,” Robinson said in a statement. “When you allow domestic terrorist groups, right-wing militias, and violent hate groups to recruit, organize, and mobilize on your platform, there is no longer a question of whether your company cares about Black people and other marginalized communities — YOU DON’T.”

He added, “Tech companies must enact and enforce a proactive, aggressive approach to stop the violent, hateful activity on its platforms — it cannot continue to fall on advocates, as it has for far too long,” Robinson continued. “Anything short of creating the policies and enforcement mechanisms necessary to proactively keep these hate-fueled groups off of tech platforms will only lead to more dangerous outcomes.”

take-stuff-literally on October 10th, 2020 at 06:36 UTC »

Not sure if this counts as big news... it’s just a precautionary action for the web host to drop them because it’s obviously bad publicity to the company hosting them.

You know what they’re gonna do? Find another web host, probably one that doesn’t care as long as they’re paying.

Katastrophi_ on October 10th, 2020 at 03:28 UTC »

FYI hosting companies in the US are encouraged by the FBI to host terrorist websites. Why? Because it gives the FBI easy access to the data. If US companies drop terrorist websites, they would go over seas, where it is not as easy to access the data. So how easy is it in America? A guy comes by the DC, asks for access to the server with a certain IP address. That server mysteriously needs maintenance, and the drives are copied for the FBI before the server is brought back online for the “client”. Hopefully they provide a warrant.

Source: used to work in a data center hosting Al-Qaeda servers, met some FBI

Scoundrelic on October 10th, 2020 at 02:59 UTC »

The Proud Boys, an FBI-designated extremist group with ties to white nationalism, lost its web host for the group’s website and online store following efforts from advocacy group Color of Change.

Wow

Oh look, here is it on NPR 2 years ago:

The group the "Proud Boys" was recently labeled an extremist group by the federal government. That's according to an internal affairs report by the Clark County Sheriff's Office in Vancouver, Wash.

Then the FBI said they didn't do that:

The FBI says the Proud Boys are not an extremist group after all

Anyone have a link to the FBI press statement stating what www.thewrap.com is alledging?