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TECHNOLOGY Monday 21 august 2017

Tech companies continue efforts to banish extremist accounts

By BARBARA ORTUTAY heading video or child por- nia hate group that helped James Fields, the driver had called on the credit
AP Technology Writer nography. Twitter, mean- organize participants in accused of driving his car card company, along with
NEW YORK (AP) — Tech while, appears to have Charlottesville, tweeted into protesters and killing a American Express, Mas-
companies’ efforts to ban- suspended the account for that it had lost service from woman. tercard and Visa, to stop
ish extremist groups and neo-Nazi site Daily Storm- MailChimp, Squarespace processing funds for hate
individuals are continuing er, though the company and PayPal. SPOTIFY groups. Amex said most of
as a social network popu- doesn’t comment on indi- The music streaming ser- the websites it was alert-
lar with extremists disap- vidual accounts. ONLINE PAYMENTS vice banned music it said ed to by activists already
peared from Google’s An-
droid app store. APP STORES
Gab had already been un- Google has removed Gab,
available in Apple’s store, a social network that ex-
though it remains acces- tremists flocked to, for “hate
sible on the web. speech,” Gab tweeted.
The banishments come in Gab’s logo is a green car-
the wake of the deadly toon frog, reminiscent of
clash at a white-nationalist “Pepe the Frog,” the inter-
rally last weekend in Vir- net meme that’s become
ginia. Civil rights advocates a symbol of the “alt-right,”
welcomed the moves, but a fringe movement that’s
say more needs to be done known for its racist, anti-Se-
— and more should have mitic and sexist views.
been done earlier.
Here is a look at some of the SERVICE PROVIDERS
technology services that The Daily Stormer’s pub-
have banned hate groups lisher said he has been ef-
or have otherwise come fectively “banned from the
out against white suprema- internet” after mocking the
cists and their supporters: victim of a deadly car at-
tack during the protests in
AIRBNB Charlottesville. Andrew An-
Ahead of the rally, the glin said by email he is “fig- This photo combo of images shows, clockwise, from upper left: a Google sign at a store in Hialeah,
housing booking service uring out the next step” af- Fla., the Twitter app displayed on a smartphone, PayPal headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and the
Airbnb barred rentals to ter four domain registration Facebook app displayed on an iPad.
people it believed were companies refused to ser- (Associated Press)
traveling to participate. vice his site. GoDaddy and
The company said it used Google said earlier that the PayPal has been removing “favors hatred or incites do not accept its credit
its existing background site violated their terms of payment accounts linked violence against race, re- cards. The company said it
checks and “input from the service. After briefly reap- to known hate groups in ligion, sexuality or the like” is “currently reviewing the
community” to identify us- pearing under a Russian the months leading up to after it was alerted to white other sites and will take the
ers who didn’t align with its domain name, the site was Charlottesville, according supremacist bands on its appropriate actions. We
standards. again offline Wednesday to the company and a civil service by the music blog maintain the right to termi-
after the security company rights organization it was Digital Music News . The nate any relationship that is
SOCIAL MEDIA Cloudflare Inc. dropped working with. For example, blog found bands identi- harmful to our brand.”
Facebook removed sev- him as a customer, leaving the account for the Daily fied by the Southern Pov- Mastercard said in a state-
eral groups and individuals the site vulnerable to hack- Stormer was banned sev- erty Law Center as white ment that it reviewed the
from its service and Insta- ing attacks. Email market- eral months ago. In a blog power music streaming on websites “provided by civic
gram for what it calls viola- ing firm MailChimp said post, the company said it Spotify. leaders and others” and
tions of terms banning hate some groups had their ac- “strives to navigate the bal- shut down the use of cards
speech. Groups included counts terminated after it ance between freedom FINDING LOVE on sites it saw as inciting
Vanguard America, Physi- changed its terms of service of expression and open Dating site OKCupid tweet- violence. At the same time,
cal Removal and Genuine on Monday to exclude cus- dialogue — and the limit- ed that it had banned the company said it gen-
Donald Trump. The com- tomers whose primary pur- ing and closing of sites that white nationalist Chris- erally doesn’t block cards
pany uses a combination pose was “inciting harm” accept payments or raise topher Cantwell, saying “based on our disagree-
of artificial intelligence or promoting “discrimina- funds to promote hate, vio- “There is no room for hate ment with specific views es-
and human moderators tory, hateful, or harassing lence and intolerance.” in a place where you’re poused or promoted.”
to weed out groups, posts content.” Squarespace, a Online fundraising sites looking for love.” Visa issued a similar state-
and people that violate website service company, GoFundMe and Patreon ment, saying that while it
its policies. Spokeswoman said it banished some sites also banned people and OUTSIDE THE TECH WORLD bans illegal transactions,
Ruchika Budhraja acknowl- out of concern they “could canceled fundraisers as- Discover said Thursday that it does not restrict “lawful
edges this is a difficult task, be used to facilitate or pro- sociated with right-wing it is “in the process” of ter- expression of views, even
as determining what is hate mote behavior that gives hate groups. GoFundMe minating the accounts of if we may find the organi-
speech is more difficult rise to violence.” Identity confirmed that it removed hate groups. The racial jus- zation or its positions to be
than something like a be- Evropa, a northern Califor- “multiple campaigns” for tice group Color of Change offensive.”q