Company:Epik (domain registrar)

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Short description: Domain registrar
Epik, Inc.
IndustryWeb services
Founded2009; 15 years ago (2009)
FounderRob Monster
Headquarters
Sammamish, Washington (state)
,
United States
Key people
Rob Monster (founder and CEO)
ServicesDomain name registration, web hosting
Websiteepik.com

Epik is an ICANN-accredited domain registrar and web hosting company that was founded in 2009 by Rob Monster.[1] It is known for providing services to websites that host far-right, Neo-Nazi, and other extremist content as well as those that sell illegal drugs and counterfeit medications.[8] It has been described by Vice as "a safehaven for the extreme right" because of its willingness to host websites that have been shut down by other web hosts.[5]

History

Epik was founded in 2009 by Rob Monster, who serves as the company's chief executive officer. The company is based in Sammamish, Washington (state) .[2] (As of December 2019), Epik is the 22nd largest domain registrar in the United States, as measured by the number of domains registered through the company.[9][10]

In February 2019, it was announced that Epik had acquired BitMitigate, an American cybersecurity company based in Vancouver, Washington. BitMitigate protects websites against potential threats including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The company continues to operate as a division of Epik, and BitMitigate's founder Nicholas Lim briefly served as Epik's chief technology officer.[6]

Hosting of far-right and illicit content

Epik describes itself as a protector of free speech.[7] Epik has a history of not responding to reports of illegal activity on the websites they register, which is unusual for domain registrars based in the United States.[4] Pharmaceutical watchdog website LegitScript reported in 2018 that they had alerted Epik to the sale of illegal drugs and counterfeit medications on websites registered by Epik, and that Epik had not acted upon the information.[4]

In August 2017, Epik and BitMitigate (an American cybersecurity company later acquired by Epik in 2019) began hosting American neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and Holocaust denial commentary and message board website The Daily Stormer.[15] This was in response to GoDaddy and Cloudflare terminating services for the site after it published an article mocking Heather Heyer, the victim of the vehicle ramming attack that occurred at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that same month.[16]

Epik received media attention in early November 2018 for registering Gab, an English-language social media website known for its mainly far-right user base, after it was ousted by GoDaddy for allowing "content on the site that both promotes and encourages violence against people". This came shortly after it was revealed that the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting had used the service to post "hateful content".[2][17][18][19] Tal Moore, a member of Epik's board, resigned in December 2018 over the company's involvement with Gab.[3] On November 7, 2018, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro sent a subpoena to Epik requesting "any and all documents which are related in any way to Gab" after Gab registered its domains onto Epik.[20][21] Gab posted screenshots of the subpoena letter in a tweet on the day the subpoena was sent, despite being asked to keep the letter confidential.[20][21] The tweet was deleted hours later.[20][21] In an email statement to Ars Technica Monster stated that "the news of the subpoena was not intended for public consumption" and that "we are cooperating with their inquiry".[21]

Epik is also known for registering other websites with far-right content, such as the video hosting service BitChute and the conspiracy theory website InfoWars.[5][7]

On August 5, 2019, Epik competitor Cloudflare announced that in the wake of the 2019 El Paso shooting they would no longer be providing services to 8chan, a far-right imageboard known as a location for hateful content and child pornography,[22][23] which the perpetrator of the shooting had allegedly used immediately prior to the attack to post a manifesto justifying his actions.[24] The same day that 8chan was removed from Cloudflare, Epik began providing hosting services, and Monster released a statement explaining their decision. Later that day, Epik's primary hardware and connectivity provider Voxility banned Epik from renting their server space.[25] Voxility's vice president of business development stated, "We have made the connection that at least two or three of the latest mass shootings in the U.S. were connected with [Epik and BitMitigate]. At some point, somebody needed to make the decision on where the limit is between what is illegal and what is freedom of speech and today it had to be us."[26] The Voxility ban took 8chan offline, along with The Daily Stormer and other Epik customers. On August 6, Epik reversed course and announced that they would not provide hosting services to 8chan; on August 7, Ars Technica noted that Epik had only ceased hosting their content and was still providing 8chan with DNS services.[27][28]

References

  1. ↑ "ICANN-Accredited Registrars". May 5, 2019. https://www.icann.org/registrar-reports/accredited-list.html. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Baker, Mike (November 4, 2018). "Seattle-area company helps fringe site Gab return in wake of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting" (in en-US). https://www.seattletimes.com/business/technology/seattle-area-company-helps-fringe-site-gab-return-in-wake-of-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting/. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Schulberg, Jessica (December 12, 2018). "The Bible-Thumping Tech CEO Who's Proud Of Keeping Neo-Nazis Online" (in en). https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rob-monster-epik-gab-neo-nazi_n_5c17bb29e4b05d7e5d846f72. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Martineau, Paris (November 6, 2018). "How Right-Wing Social Media Site Gab Got Back Online". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. https://www.wired.com/story/how-right-wing-social-media-site-gab-got-back-online/. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Makuch, Ben (May 8, 2019). "The Far Right Has Found a Web Host Savior" (in en-US). https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/gy4yg9/the-far-right-has-found-a-web-host-savior. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Macuk, Anthony (February 15, 2019). "Epik buys Vancouver-based BitMitigate" (in en). https://www.columbian.com/news/2019/feb/15/epik-buys-vancouver-based-bitmitigate/. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Hayden, Michael Edison (January 11, 2019). "A Problem of Epik Proportions" (in en). https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/01/11/problem-epik-proportions. 
  8. ↑ [2][3][4][5][6][7]
  9. ↑ "Registrar Stats: Top Domain Registrars in UNITEDSTATES". https://www.domainstate.com/country/unitedstates.html?CurPage=1. 
  10. ↑ "Total Domains by Registrar". December 2019. https://www.registrarowl.com/report_registrar_total_domains.php?filter_selected=1&fltr_ctry=1&fltr_tld=&fltr_ctype=1. 
  11. ↑ Wines, Michael (July 5, 2015). "White Supremacists Extend Their Reach Through Websites". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/us/white-supremacists-extend-their-reach-through-websites.html. Retrieved October 6, 2015. 
  12. ↑ Pearce, Matt (June 24, 2015). "What happens when a millennial goes fascist? He starts up a neo-Nazi site". Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-daily-stormer-interview-20150624-story.html. Retrieved August 22, 2015. 
  13. ↑ O'Brien, Luke (January 19, 2018). "American Neo-Nazi Is Using Holocaust Denial As A Legal Defense" (in en-US). HuffPost. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/neo-nazi-holocaust-denial-legal-defense_us_5a612a5ce4b0125fd6354368. 
  14. ↑ O'Brein, Luke (December 2017). "The Making of an American Nazi". https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/the-making-of-an-american-nazi/544119/. "As Anglin would later write, the official policy of his site was: "Jews should be exterminated."" 
  15. ↑ [11][12][13][14]
  16. ↑ Conger, Kate; Popper, Nathaniel (August 5, 2019). "Behind the Scenes, 8chan Scrambles to Get Back Online" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/technology/8chan-website-online.html. 
  17. ↑ Hess, Amanda (November 30, 2016). "The Far Right Has a New Digital Safe Space". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/30/arts/the-far-right-has-a-new-digital-safe-space.html. 
  18. ↑ Robertson, Adi (September 6, 2017). "Far-right friendly social network Gab is facing censorship controversy". https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/6/16259150/gab-ai-registrar-andrew-anglin-daily-stormer-crackdown. Retrieved April 3, 2018. 
  19. ↑ Selyukh, Alina (May 21, 2017). "Feeling Sidelined By Mainstream Social Media, Far-Right Users Jump To Gab" (in en). National Public Radio. https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/05/21/529005840/feeling-sidelined-by-mainstream-social-media-far-right-users-jump-to-gab. 
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 Blake, Andrew (November 9, 2018). "Epik, Gab's newest domain provider, subpoenaed in wake of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting". https://apnews.com/c530823acb6ff36a13144a870e0b4a1d. 
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 Lee, Timothy B. (November 8, 2019). "Gab cries foul as Pennsylvania attorney general subpoenas DNS provider" (in en-us). https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/gab-cries-foul-as-pennsylvania-attorney-general-subpoenas-dns-provider/. 
  22. ↑ Wong, Julia Carrie (August 5, 2019). "8chan: the far-right website linked to the rise in hate crimes" (in en-GB). The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/04/mass-shootings-el-paso-texas-dayton-ohio-8chan-far-right-website. 
  23. ↑ Howell O'Neill, Patrick (November 17, 2014). "8chan is home to a hive of pedophiles" (in en). https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/8chan-pedophiles-child-porn-gamergate/. 
  24. ↑ Robertson, Adi (August 6, 2019). "Why banning hate sites is so hard". https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/6/20757267/8chan-offline-hate-sites-internet-problems-el-paso-texas-dayton-ohio-cloudflare. 
  25. ↑ Robertson, Adi (August 5, 2019). "8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service". https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/5/20754943/8chan-epik-offline-voxility-service-cutoff-hate-speech-ban. 
  26. ↑ Bajak, Frank (August 5, 2019). "Online providers knock 8chan offline after mass shooting". https://apnews.com/f82d6b27caf64167852ace2dad6c0c63. 
  27. ↑ Macuk, Anthony (August 6, 2019). "Epik reverses course, says BitMitigate will not support 8chan" (in en-US). https://www.columbian.com/news/2019/aug/06/epik-reverses-course-says-bitmitigate-will-not-support-8chan/. 
  28. ↑ Salter, Jim (August 7, 2019). "8chan resurfaces, along with The Daily Stormer and another Nazi site" (in en-us). https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/8chan-resurfaces-along-with-the-daily-stormer-and-a-nazi-site/. 

External links




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