In the wake of the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville over the weekend, internet service provider GoDaddy has decided it will no longer handle the domain of the Daily Stormer, a leading white nationalist/Nazi website. From NBC News:

“We have informed the Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service. If no action is taken after 24 hours, we will cancel the service,” GoDaddy spokesman Dan Race wrote in an email to NBC News.

Race also noted that GoDaddy does not host the Daily Stormer on its servers — it only hosts the domain…

“Given their latest article comes on the immediate heels of a violent act, we believe this type of article could incite additional violence, which violates our terms of service,” Race said.

What are the odds that GoDaddy’s spokesman making this announcement would be named Race? In any case, here is the tweet that apparently prompted the decision to boot the Daily Stormer’s domain. Note that GoDaddy’s response came less than 2 hours later:

.@GoDaddy you host The Daily Stormer – they posted this on their site. Please retweet if you think this hate should be taken down & banned. pic.twitter.com/fqTtGoTbmn

— Amy Siskind 🏳️‍🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) August 14, 2017

We informed The Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service.

— GoDaddy (@GoDaddy) August 14, 2017

Is the article disgusting? Yes. Do I believe it was likely to incite more violence? Not really. But I don’t blame GoDaddy for wanting to disassociate itself from a Nazi website that is mocking a dead woman. GoDaddy is not required to provide any internet services for this group. Neither is anyone else.

At about the same time the site was given the 24-hour deadline by GoDaddy, it was also apparently hacked by Anonymous. From the Independent:

A post on the Daily Stormer website attributed to the hacking group said that the site was now under its control and that it would stop it posting “putrid hate”. It also suggested that it will release data that had been taken as part of the attack, as well as suggesting it could conduct attacks on its leader.

The site is to remain online for 24 hours “so the world can witness the hate”, the group said. After that it will be shut down forever, they claimed.

It’s a bit of a coincidence that this hacker (or hackers) announced a 24-hour deadline at nearly the same time. In fact, one of Anonymous’ news feeds questioned whether the group was involved at all, suggesting that maybe the hacking was a stunt:

Your Anon News, one of the biggest Anonymous accounts, said that it didn’t think the hack had been done by any established member.

“We have no confirmation that ‘Anonymous’ is involved yet,” it wrote on Twitter. “Looks more like a [Daily Stormer] stunt. Wonder if they are having issues finding a new host.”

So maybe given the choice between disappearing after a dispute with its ISP or being taken down by hackers, the owners of the site decided the latter sounded better. One way or another, it sounds as if the site will be gone soon.

Update: From Reuters, the site has apparently found a new domain host:

UPDATE: Neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer moves registration to Google after GoDaddy severs ties pic.twitter.com/h1LzMquYQt

— Reuters (@Reuters) August 14, 2017

Update: And Google dumped them too… From CNBC:

Google canceled the registration of a Nazi website soon after it moved its domain registration to the service, a Google spokesperson told CNBC.

“We are cancelling Daily Stormer’s registration with Google Domains for violating our terms of service,” the company representative said in a statement.

That was fast.