SPLC Constructs and Weaponizes False Claims of Racism Against Domain Registrar Epik to Support Big Tech Monopolies

The unprecedented abuse of power and influence by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has reached critical levels that must be addressed. Any integrity once present in this organization, has long since given way to what now exists as one of the most destructive and overtly weaponized platforms in this nation’s history. Masquerading as a civil rights organization, the precision attacks and coordinated campaigns have become so transparent, that in their arrogance, they believe themselves to be completely untouchable. As their influence and relationships destroy the lives and families of literally thousands of Americans each year, they allow real racism to hide and fester, by undermining the tremendous responsibility to accurately identify and treat it. We have let political interests and compromised bad actors pollute many of the noblest elements of our great country, as they trade favors and services for preferential treatment and hefty remuneration. Yet few have had the courage to speak out in strength, as they risk disrupting their status quo – and in many cases – their very livelihoods and future capacity to survive.

We have had the unfortunate privilege to see how truly relentless and harrowing their targeting can be, and the depth by which they can manipulate and pressure others without any fear of consequence or reprisal. For those not yet following our story, as a domain registrar, Epik had been recognized as the “Best Registrar of 2020”, by over 900 technology leaders and industry peers earlier this year. This was against all odds, and a massive testimony to both the value we place on our customers, and the investments we have undertaken into innovation as the leading management interface for domain investors. However it has not stopped the SPLC and other organizations in the media and Big Tech, from doing everything they can do to contain our future growth and terminate our operations.

In the first quarter of 2020, we had received notice “off the record” that PayPal was intending to deplatform and remove services from our domain management company. To put it succinctly – the SPLC needed the public to believe we were the registrar for many of the top organizations on their hate watch list. In fact, PayPal’s relationship with the SPLC as a guiding force has been well documented, as it has been a significant theme of their CEO Dan Schulman’s interviews, comments, and focus points since March. The SPLC article originally crafted nearly two years ago against Epik and its CEO, Rob Monster, served as a significant anchor for Wikipedia – for a page literally setup and maintained by one of their own staff members. It has been used to artificially guide the construction of dozens of other high level media articles, to formulate the most damaging profile of Epik anyone could imagine. Our CEO though has walked through this fire for 24 months, focused every day on lifting those up in front of him, without ever backing down from those who serve to destroy the lives of others.

In an attempt to rectify this, we reached out to a SPLC surrogate, who was kind enough to provide a map of the organizations all marked by the Southern Poverty Law Center to be branded as hate groups. The message that came with it, was literally an encouragement to do everything possible to ban, restrict, limit, harm, and reduce everyone identified, and to win “at any cost”. We would ask the reader to keep in mind that since 2018, more than 1500 attack pieces against Epik have been manufactured falsely as a result, labeling us weekly as a safe haven for Nazis, hate and racism.

There are 354 websites and organizations targeted in the SPLC hit list, all marked for their allies for service disruption, including our own. In reviewing the total counts, the registrar Network Solutions has 54, NameCheap has 25, Tucows has 24, and the registrars DreamHost, eNom, and Domain.com each carry 12. The major monopoly GoDaddy though – with their $12 billion market cap and actions so thoroughly drenched in hypocrisy that many cringe at their very name – topped the list with a whopping 126 entries.

While employees, contractors, and representatives of GoDaddy have also continued to target and defame Epik across numerous mediums, GoDaddy supports the highest concentration of “far right” organizations in the world, as well as dozens of companies that even sell Nazi merchandise to this very day. Cloudflare provides hosting resiliency and protection to 75 SPLC entries, and GoDaddy actively hosts 54 – in addition to their direct registrar services. Many of these organizations also collect premiums in the form of privacy services to protect their valued customers from transparency.

The irony here is easy to recognize – the SPLC designated Epik as a hate group because of its “choice and propensity to offer registrar services to far right organizations”. The dozens of articles regarding PayPal over the last three days has referenced it repeatedly. But of the 354 organizations contained within the SPLC list, Epik has the least of any major registrar. It only took five singular entries to earn the designation of King of all Online Hate. The greater irony: we are also on that list, because of the manufactured idea that we are the registrar for most hate sites, and so the cycle continues.

Yet no other registrar in the world can be found in its ranks.

In terms of motivation, it is very simple. There is a concentrated effort to position GoDaddy as a single source monopoly, and Epik is a threat due to our innovation and commitment to our amazing customers. Some of the alternative registrars in the marketplace are strategic proxies, positioned in a timeline for eventual absorption, as these individuals truly think long term in their processes. One can reduce this to conspiracy theories and tin hat concepts, but the numbers don’t lie. Neither does the published logic of SPLC, Google, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, PayPal, and others, for why they have decided that Epik doesn’t make the grade.

GoDaddy themselves had a representative literally publish an official statement this summer that we were banned and not welcome to the key industry trade show, post GoDaddy making the unprecedented move of purchasing it for themselves. The repeated attacks by GoDaddy and others make their own discrimination fully transparent, as they go as far as stating that we are restricted from participation due to belief in God. Each of them know full and well what lies on their own servers and within their own direct responsibility. It comes down to a perpetual stream of false accusations of racism leveraged as media content, so they can manipulate others to reduce awareness and knowledge of their own corruption and greed.

This is what unchecked monopoly abuse looks like. Without Epik, it only gets worse from here.