ETA: I'm going to leave what I said up because I think it still applies in the general, but
it's now being reported that The Rebel was not kicked out by its registrar. So the idea that this is becoming more normal is inaccurate, which I think is a good thing, for the reasons below.
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This is unsurprising and clearly following in the footsteps of the Daily Stormer being booted last week. The world's not losing much by not having access to these sites, but the process by which this is happening is a little terrifying for net neutrality.
Domain registrars hold a lot of power on the web. Hosting services hold even more, particularly for larger media sites. While it's true there are alternatives--some ethical, some not--the end result is these sites being driven underground, likely onto the dark web where they are going to do exactly the same thing but will become that much more difficult to pursue and potentially take action against should they violate the law or worse. In a worst case scenario, the sense of martyrdom could embolden them.
Further, these internet companies are in many cases corporate entities with PR departments. Many domain registrars succeed or fail on word of mouth. They have the power--and indeed the right--to boot whomever and whatever they like, and they will do so, it seems, to protect their image. Which I understand, particularly in this case. I'm just not sure I trust their judgment in future cases. Once internet companies see that this is a.) necessary, and b.) works, those same image-conscious corporations have the social mandate to boot any site that's bad for PR. It is not that long ago that sites proclaiming LGBTQ+ friendliness might have been considered bad for PR. So too much of the traffic around popular uprisings like Occupy or Tahrir Square. Antifa and other activists rely heavily on online organizing and hosting and part of their role is to antagonize corporate power. Not to mention journalists who publish unpleasant stories--see Gawker, a slightly distasteful site at times, the shuttering of which was entirely legal but deeply worrying (and the same thing is now being done to the much more reputable Techdirt).
Ezra Levant's been around awhile. He's always been pretty obnoxious. But I'm a big fan of
this piece (from 2010) by Rick Mercer. For those who aren't familiar with him, he's a leftish comic and writer from Newfoundland famous for his "rants," originally on "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" and then on his own show. I remember the controversy Mercer's referring to, when the Danish cartoons were published. That was a considerably more muddied controversy. Would a registrar boot a site for running those cartoons if enough people were upset? It's worth bearing in mind that
AW has, in the past, been booted due to hosts being hit with fake/ungrounded DMCA takedown requests from disgruntled agents.
Just to re-iterate: The Rebel is crazy, 2010 was a long time ago, Levant has clearly been very emboldened, and his tears over getting booted are pretty hollow--not only is his site deeply disturbing, Levant has
always played for the kind of attention he's getting now, and getting shut down was a possibility he's courted before. There will always be another Levant venture, even if The Rebel never surfaces again.
But the
DMCA is and was flawed legislation when it was passed not because it was trying to protect copyright holders (incl. writers) but because it had the potential (among other problems) to lead to incidents like what happened to AW. We shouldn't be worried about whatever happens to Levant and his colleagues but we should be mindful of the precedents we inflict or have already inflicted on the very social norms we want to protect.
