07/18/2020
On June 15, 2020 VDARE.com received notice of termination of our 20-year business relationship with our domain registrar Network Solutions. Apparently this was because patriotic immigration reform suddenly violated its Acceptable Use Policy, as interpreted by a D.C.-based lawfare vigilante gang.
Belatedly, I’m relieved to report that VDARE.com has successfully transferred our domains to new registrars. As it turns out, the transfers can be done with of the click of a few buttons. The hard part is navigating the political environment.
The domain registrar is what translates the URL of any given website to the location where it can be found on the internet. Without registrar services, your website may exist, but nobody can see it.
In 2016, the US Department of Commerce handed over control of registrar accreditation to a nonprofit called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). My understanding is that subsequently accreditation became difficult to get and expensive to maintain, and is really only possible for well-established businesses, not startups. As a result, many retail level registrar services repackage services through other organizations rather than operating independently.
Large corporations across all industries have joined forces in recent years to deplatform patriotic voices. As evidenced by VDARE.com’s recent troubles, registrars are no exception — but we are not the first to experience this type of purge. And as the election approaches, it’s safe to assume we will not be the last.
The consolidation of registrar services into established, accredited parent companies means that Leftist enforcers need only target the parent companies (in our case, Web.com) to knock out entire sets of downline registrars (in our case, Network Solutions). As a lay consumer, I am finding it very difficult to know who the parent companies are, how their networks spread and to whom.
So VDARE.com has been thrown into a distressing cat-and-mouse game: move to a new registrar, wait for them or their parent company to terminate us, find a new one.
The whole process mirrors VDARE.com’s experience experienced with ad services, email marketing services, payment processors and event spaces. The effect across all industries wastes precious money, time and talent we could be using toward our mission of patriotic immigration reform.
Our enemies know this — that’s why they do it.
Their goal is to silence us completely. And until that can be done, they’re happy to siphon off our lifeblood, one platform at a time.
In the case of registrars, I’m happy to report that the possibility of a more stable solution has presented itself. If it works, it could help not only VDARE.com but a large swath of other deplatformed or First-Amendment-conscious websites. Only time will tell, but I’ll keep you posted as soon as I have more news.
In the meantime, we have spread our many domain extensions out across multiple platforms, some of them based outside the US. It is impossible to predict how long any of these companies will tolerate our presence, but it is unlikely that they will all pull the plug at the same time.
We are in the process of setting up a series of site mirrors, so that when one registrar falls, the site is still available on a clone site at another extension. For example, if VDARE.com is down, a reader can find it at VDARE.net (held by a different registrar).
We’re also setting up country-specific domains that are not controlled by ICANN. VDARE.ee is based in Estonia, for example. Amazingly, you can get a domain specific to the Soviet Union (VDARE.su). Wouldn’t it be rich if that were the last holdout for freedom of speech online?
Scores of readers wrote in with advice on this issue, and for that I am deeply thankful. I can say with complete sincerity that nobody matches our readers when it comes to warmth, support and helpfulness. I could not have navigated this new territory without your expert advice, and it would have been much harder to keep up morale without your kind words of encouragement.
Thanks also to everyone who went the extra mile to learn about the TOR browser, download it, and give it a whirl.
But the goal of all this new infrastructure is to avoid ghettoization on TOR for as long as possible. But we will continue to mirror our site there as a failsafe.
As the purge intensifies (and it already has — in just the last few days there have been scads of significant accounts kicked off YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and others) it will become even more important for patriots to learn how to access censored content through alternative channels. Security is, almost by definition, not convenient. I am extremely proud of everyone who took this opportunity to learn something new, something that we hope will never be the only option, but that is vital to preserve as our last resort.
BREAKING: I’m also honored to report that VDARE.com exceeded our fundraising goal by a significant margin. The stretch match goal was $50,000 and we brought in well over that.
Despite this unprecedented Reign Of Terror, American patriots are rallying around!
The challenges are far from over. But thanks to your loyal and ongoing generosity (click here to donate in support of our efforts) VDARE.com is fighting from a position of strength.
Speaking of positions of strength, stay tuned for a forthcoming update on the Berkeley Springs Castle!
A native Texan, Lydia Brimelow graduated from Loyola University Chicago in 2006. She is fundraiser and office manager, lion tamer, fire extinguisher and miscellany handler at VDARE.com. She and Peter married in 2007 and have three daughters together.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.