Was America’s most vicious alt-right website hacked this morning? The verdict is unclear.
Here’s what we know:
On August 13, internet server Neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer was supposedly hacked by Anonymous, a collective of worldwide hackers who gained national attention in 2008 when they hacked the Church of Scientology website. The Daily Stormer hacking job was made public with a post, which read:
HACKERS OF THE WORLD HAVE UNITED IN DEFENSE OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
YOU SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED US
A few hours later, Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin posted a follow-up:
Anglin Here. I’ve Retaken Control of the Site. The Daily Stormer Never Dies.
Since the fiasco, Anonymous has taken to Twitter to rebuke the claims of an alleged hack. “Seriously, suck less,” they tweeted to Daily Stormer in response.
If goal of Daily Stormer was to get us to celebrate a BS claim, it backfired. Seriously, suck less.
— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) August 14, 2017
The Independent was the first to note that the “hacking job” came after the neo-Nazi website was notified by its server GoDaddy that it would be shut down in 24 hours after violating their terms of service.
On August 13, Daily Stormer posted a hateful article about Heather Heyer, a victim of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, titled: Heather Heyer: Woman Killed in Road Rage Incident was a Fat, Childless 32-Year-Old Slut.
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
A few hours later, the Anonymous hack was posted, driving traffic to the website. A desperate cry for attention before being shut down?