Thread by @arctotherium42

Deplatforming of websites thread. This is when private web infrastructure actors (cloud providers, payment processors, DNS providers, DDoS protectors) coordinate to purge websites. Several layers of the web stack are oligopolies, so this can happen sans explicit coordination.

The first major case of infrastructure-level deplatforming was WikiLeaks in 2010, for releasing classified information obtained illegally (US diplomatic cables), referred to as "Cablegate," by AWS, EveryDNS, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and Bank of America.

The attacks on WikiLeaks were not ideological ones (they were committing actual crimes as a website), but the tactics (both deplatforming and extremely bogus sex "scandals" like sending love letters to a 19 year old), presaged later efforts during the Great Awokening.

The first major ideological deplatforming was that of the Daily Stormer in 2017. First GoDaddy, then Google Domains, then several different countries ((.ru), (.al),(.at)(.is)(.cat)) booted them off of their domain. Then Sendgrid and Zoho terminated email and SaaS services.

The coup de grace was Cloudflare terminating DDoS protections, which effectively terminated the site. The entire deplatforming process took four days (GoDaddy terminated their domain Aug 13, Cloudflare acted on Aug 16).

Unlike WikiLeaks, the Daily Stormer was not doing anything illegal. But they were an explicitly Neo-Nazi website and so attracted little defense, and none at all from lawmakers. Unsurprisingly, then, this tactic quickly escalated to more benign sites.

Gab is a Twitter alternative. It is a right-wing site, but more BlueSky than Daily Stormer. In Oct 2017, GoDaddy stopped registering the domain, Joyent, their hosting provider, terminated them, PayPal and Stripe blocked payments, and BackBlaze terminated cloud storage.

8Chan, an unmoderated 4Chan alternative, was deplatformed in 2019, first by Cloudflare, then by a sequence of small cloud providers (8Chan never used AWS/Azure/Google), (Alibaba Cloud, Zare UK, Tucows). Their domain registrar, Epik, was then itself deplatformed by Voxility.

Parler, like Gab, was a Twitter alternative, but where Gab primarily appealed to deplatformed alt-righters (but again, was and is a social media site), Parler had a much more normie MAGA userbase. Parler was deplatformed in 2021.

Parler was first banned from Google and Apple's app stores (combined, near monopoly on mobile), then its cloud provider (AWS), then payment processors (Stripe, American express), and SaaS providers (Slack, Okta, and Zendesk).

Parler tried to get a temporary restraining order on antitrust grounds (alleging that Twitter was conspiring with Amazon to crush a competitor), but was rejected by federal judge Barbara Rothstein.

This effectively destroyed the site; Parler was able to restore service eventually but lost 96% of its user base.

At this point, deplatforming was so normalized that Kiwi Farms, a random small forum, was deplatformed in 2022 for hosting threats against trans streamer Keffals. First by Cloudflare, then by a smaller anti-DDoS site (DDoS Guard).

The biggest escalation in the Kiwi Farms (again, random forum, not an important or major site) deplatforming, was that for the first time a Tier 1 internet service provider (ISP), Hurricane Electric, joined the deplatforming.

In several of these cases (Daily Stormer, Gab, Kiwi Farms), the sites were/are run by very technically skilled individuals who could replace the deplatformed services themselves (eg Kiwi Farms' Joshua Moon built his own CloudFlare alternative), but their reach was still gone.

(And of course, "you need to be personally capable of replacing the entire Internet and SaaS tech stack by yourself to operate" will kill almost all sites).

Even the "domain registar of last resort," Epik, which just provided domain registration to other sites, was itself destroyed when Anonymous hackers hacked it in 2021 and leaked 15M email addresses, leading the owner to sell it and the new owners to cease providing services.

First, Neo-Nazi websites got deplatformed, then social media sites with heavily alt-right userbases, then unmoderated image boards, then sites catering to normie MAGA, then random forums. This worked to disarm opposition; no Senator was going to stand up for the Daily Stormer.

A common retort to people complaining of censorship is "make your own [Facebook/Reddit/YouTube etc]". But if you do that, can you also replace domain registration, payment processing, cloud hosting, DDoS protection, app store access, SaaS services, and even your ISP by yourself?

Some troglodytes will say mass purges of websites from the Internet by PRIVATE infrastructure providers are OK. These people are natural slaves with zero appreciation for freedom of speech/expression/association who love the idea of a loophole around the First Amendment.

Here are the sources used in this thread. I recommend reading through a few of them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epik,
eff.org/deeplinks/2021…,
cato.org/blog/brief-his…,
eff.org/deeplinks/2023…,
gnet-research.org/2025/12/23/cut…,
knowyourmeme.com/news/cloudflar…,
nbcnews.com/tech/internet/…,
techcrunch.com/2021/01/21/jud…,
cnn.com/2021/01/13/tec…,
npr.org/2021/01/09/955…,
blog.cloudflare.com/terminating-se…,
nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news…,
cnbc.com/2017/08/17/clo…,
newsweek.com/daily-stormer-…,
techcrunch.com/2017/08/15/aft…,
ashishb.net/tech/cablegate…,