In the wake of the violence surrounding a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. on Saturday, hackers have taken over a top neo-Nazi website.
The Daily Stormer published a post denigrating Heather Heyer, the civil rights activist who was killed on Saturday when a far-right terrorist from Ohio used his car as a weapon, plowing into a crowd of counter-protestors.
The post called Heyer "fat and a drain on society." It added, "Despite feigned outrage by the media, most people are glad she is dead, as she is the definition of uselessness," the story said. "A 32-year-old woman without children is a burden on society and has no value."
After the post was published, domain name giant GoDaddy gave the Daily Stormer 24 hours to move its operations to a new provider. Unknown perpetrators claiming to be part of the Anonymous hacktivist group also apparently reacted, hacking the site and taking over the homepage, which now reiterates that it will be shut down within 24 hours. It also defends Heyer, saying that she was “victim of white supremacist terrorism”, and adds:
“For too long the Daily Stormer and Andrew Anglin have spewed their putrid hate on this site,” it said. “This evil cannot be allowed to stand. It took a united force of elite hackers from around the world to breach the systems and the firewall. The events of Charlottesville alerted us to the need for immediate action. We want you Nazis to know: your time is short.”
However, an official Anonymous Twitter account, Your Anon News, said that there’s no confirmation that a member is responsible, and suggested that the post could be a “stunt.”
Looks more like a [Daily Stormer] stunt,” the account tweeted. “Wonder if they are having issues finding a new host.”
The site is run by Andrew Anglin, who penned the screed against Heyer and who praised President Donald Trump’s response, which did not specifically censure white supremacists for the violence.
Controversially, Trump said, "we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides. On many sides. It's been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time."
“He loves us,” Anglin said.