The world’s first major hate website has been shut down

Bold steps are being taken to counter racist and hate groups.

Stormfront, termed as the first major hate site on the Internet that spread racist content, has been shut down. The website was first created in 1995 by Don Black, an American white supremacist, after he took programming classes during his time in prison during the 1980s. Balck is a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, an infamous American organization that promotes white supremacy, white nationalism, and is anti-immigration. Don Black was also a member of the American Nazi Party in the 1970s.

Web.com, the domain provider for the Stormfront website, took it down after the Lawyers’ Committee For Civil Rights Under Law pointed out that the site was in violation of Web.com own rules and regulations. More specifically, the Committee stated a clause from their use policy that said, “users may not …. utilize the services in a manner deemed, in company’s sole discretion, to display bigotry, racism, discrimination, or hatred in any manner whatsoever.”

Since creating the website over 20 years ago, Black used it steadily to propagate racist and hate messages. His forum had a membership of over 300,000 users and the site was attracting 1.4 million users monthly. Even though the community was very small, the site has brainwashed people to commit atrocious crimes like killing police officers and murdering Jewish people and covering their places of worship with swastikas. One person went so far as to set off a bomb and commit a mass shooting. Don Black denied the fact that his website had anything to do with the people who committed these crimes.

Since the white supremacist attack in Charlottesville, USA, tolerance for rasict groups has decreased. And the news of Stormfront’s takedown will create a ripple effect throughout the hate groups that have been carrying our heinous acts over the years but have recently become more active. Tech giants like Facebook and YouTube are also taking steps to ban and remove hate content from their sites.