Even as someone who generally seeks out multiple sides to a story I had never been to DailyStormer.com until yesterday. Honestly the site has NEVER come up during any conversations or communication I’ve had in the real world, and the only times I’ve heard about it online was that it was a site for Neo-nazis. I categorized The Daily Stormer as one of those fringe sites that speak to fringe people that simply don’t hold an interest for me. By all accounts that’s what the site is. But that’s the thing… There are soooo many accounts… So many authors hold up Daily Stormer as some major player that the reality is a bit of a shock.
The Washington Post and every other ‘zine with a website posted yesterday that the Stormer’s DNS Registration was being terminated by GoDaddy over TOS issues pertaining to a story about the woman killed in the Charlottesville attack. I had had my fill of hearing about the Charlottesville attack, I don’t care about Neo-nazis, and I really could care less if the Daily Stormer folded tomorrow, but as a tech professional TOS (Terms of Service) issues are a huge deal. In the #RESIST world the wonton use of TOS is beyond a bit concerning, and the fact that GoDaddy went after Daily Stormer at the DNS level is scary. So The Washington Post WON. After months and months of talking about all of the reasons I should visit The Daily Stormer and read their posts The Washington Post finally convinced me that yesterday was the day to learn more.
To be frank I’m still not sure what I read while I was there. This isn’t the normal dig where people have different viewpoints from you and you call them crazy. This is… It’s as if a Nazi decided to create a version of the Onion, and then went on a bad LSD trip before they started writing. The titles of the post start half nonsensical, and then it gets more bizarre from there. There were a line of stories basically talking about protecting Dodge Chargers from hate crimes… LITERALLY the gist was defending Dodge Chargers from fat, woman, SJW’s….
This isn’t an over the top Brietbart. This is an evil version of the Onion on some very bad drugs. It’s poorly written, and seems focused on pissed off sixteen year olds. Is this what we’re supposed to be scared of..?
The problem is that mainstream media is turning sites like the Daily Stormer into modern day boogie men. They’ve found by playing up these type of hateful sites that they can drive traffic to their own content. They talk about 100 person protests in cities with hundreds of thousands of people as if it’s statistically significant. They show sites like the Stormer and decry how journalism has been lost, and all the while they advertise these protests, they advertise these websites, and they feed what they claim to want to destroy.
How many 16 year olds learn of the Daily Stormer from CNN, The Washington Post or any other “liberal” media. How many young people who are pissed off about the state of the world, because all young people are pissed off about the state of the world, learn of these protests and feel that it speaks to them? When day in and day out fringe movements are positioned a monolithic fronts that need to be fought tooth an nail does the main stream media realize that their publications are as much a recruitment tool as anything else? Yesterday I visited DailyStormer.com because The Washington Post finally convinced me that I should. The Washington Post provided the Stormer with not just a single page view, but a large number from me as I sifted through the posts to try to figure out what the hell I was looking at. For me I found it odd, disturbing, and poorly written. But how many others will find that it says something to them? How many other will think that there is something profound in the defense of Dodge Chargers? How many will not come just once, but will add it to their daily routine..?
Advertising costs a lot of money. In any tech business Client Acquisition Cost is the real killer. It may cost you pennies a year in resources per user, BUT acquiring that user may cost hundreds of dollars. The Washington Post is providing high quality, targeted marketing for no cost to the Stormer. DNS is a technical issue that can be solved. Client Acquisition is the keystone.
This is my problem with the modern “trusted” news sources. It’s not that they’re Fake News, rather that they’re bad news. They know what gets eyeballs, and therefore ad dollars and so that’s what they go after. The problem is that this form of “news” will end up creating more problems for all of us at the end of the day.
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