A brand of tiki torches denounced the use of its products by white supremacists this past weekend in Charlottesville, VA, reports The Hill.
TIKI said in a Facebook post that they are not associated in any way with the events that took place in Charlottesville. On Friday night, white supremacists marched through the city holding tiki torches, ahead of a planned rally held in the city the next day. TIKI also said they are “deeply saddened and disappointed to be included” writes The Hill.
The post reads: “We do not support their message or the use of our products in this way. Our products are designed to enhance backyard gatherings and to help family and friends connect with each other at home in their yard.”
The group marched onto the University of Virginia campus holding the torches, shouting “white lives matter” and “you will not replace us” ahead of a planned “Unite the Right” rally scheduled for Saturday to protest the removal of a Confederate statue.
On Saturday, one man drove a car into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one and leaving more than a dozen injured, reports The Hill.
Other companies have reacted to as well. GoDaddy announced late Sunday that it will no longer house the Daily Stormer, “a neo-Nazi website that promotes white supremacist and white nationalist ideas” reports the Washington Post. GoDaddy tweeted that Daily Stormer had been told it had 24 hours to move its website domain to another provider.
We informed The Daily Stormer that they have 24 hours to move the domain to another provider, as they have violated our terms of service.
— GoDaddy (@GoDaddy) August 14, 2017
The company said Daily Stormer had “violated” the Web host’s “terms of service.” This was after a Twitter user called attention to an online post by Daily Stormer Andrew Angelin, reports the Post, which disparaged Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman killed in Charlottesville by the man who drove his car into a crowd.
In the post, Angelin called Heyer a “drain on society,” disparaged her appearance and wrote “Most people are glad she is dead.”
Twitter user Amy Siskind tweeted at GoDaddy, alerting them to Angelin’s Daily Stormer post and said “Please retweet if you think this hate should be taken down and banned.” Her post was shared over 5,000 times.
.@GoDaddy you host The Daily Stormer – they posted this on their site. Please retweet if you think this hate should be taken down & banned. pic.twitter.com/fqTtGoTbmn
— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) August 14, 2017
Dan Race, GoDaddy’s spokesperson, confirmed the company’s decision to kick the Daily Stormer off their service in an email to the Washington Post.
“Given The Daily Stormer’s latest article comes on the immediate heels of a violent act, we believe this type of article could incite additional violence, which violates our terms of service,” Race wrote in the email to the Post.
Thanks for reading InsideHook. Sign up for our daily newsletter and be in the know.
