{"id":8729,"date":"2017-08-14T14:46:08","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T22:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2017\/08\/14\/news-2502\/"},"modified":"2017-08-14T14:46:08","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T22:46:08","slug":"news-2502","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2017\/08\/14\/news-2502\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro-Trump Discord Server &#8216;Centipede Central&#8217; Says It&#8217;s Being Monitored"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Samantha  Cole| Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2017 22:40:46 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> Discord, a Slack-like chat app originally designed for gamers and the birthplace of some of the internet&#8217;s most <a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/qk994b\/the-secret-chatrooms-where-donald-trump-memes-are-born\">vile memes<\/a>, announced today that it would take action against hateful rhetoric on its servers. <\/p>\n<p> Several of Discord&#8217;s popular chat servers have made a name for themselves as a safe haven for white supremacists and those bearing the &#8220;alt-right&#8221; banner. Not all of Discord is populated by Nazi propaganda (in fact, much of it <a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/xwz833\/surreal-memes-are-the-last-escape-the-internet-has\">is delightful<\/a>), but as the app grew to over 25 million users, Discord has faced <a href=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/how-a-video-game-chat-client-became-the-web-s-new-cessp-1792039566\" target=\"_blank\">criticism<\/a> for not acting quickly or strongly enough to combat rampant hate speech. <\/p>\n<p> Monday, Discord <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/discordapp\/status\/897170310348263426\" target=\"_blank\">tweeted<\/a> that it has shut down the altright.com server, which was <a href=\"https:\/\/altright.com\/2017\/06\/03\/introducing-the-altright-com-discord-chat\/\" target=\"_blank\">created in June by the white nationalist website<\/a>. Richard Spencer is the American Editor of altright.com, where he published a racist &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/altright.com\/2017\/08\/11\/what-it-means-to-be-alt-right\/\" target=\"_blank\">Charlottesville Statement<\/a>&#8221; prior to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday. Other Discord channels that promoted the rally, like the popular r\/The_Donald offshoot channel Centipede Central, are still online. Discord told Motherboard that it is &#8220;aware&#8221; of Centipede Central, and the head moderator of the channel said it&#8217;s preparing for a crackdown.<\/p>\n<p> &#8220;Today, we&#8217;ve shut down the altright.com server and a number of accounts associated with the events in Charlottesville,&#8221; Discord said in a tweet. &#8220;We will continue to take action against white supremacy, nazi ideology, and all forms of hate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div style=\"max-width: 550px;\" data-iframely-id=\"85ZSCRB\" class=\"article__embed article__embed--iframely\">\n<div style=\"left: 0; width: 100%; height: 0; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%;\" data-iframely-smart-iframe=\"true\"><iframe  src= width=\"100%\" height=\"420\" frameborder=\"0\" ><\/iframe> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p> I asked Discord whether the company has plans to address other servers&#8217; participation in the white supremacist rally and the <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/administration\/346394-mcmaster-calls-charlottesville-attack-terror\" target=\"_blank\">terror attack in Charlottesville<\/a> over the weekend\u2014namely Centipede Central.<\/p>\n<p> &#8220;We have no further comment on any additional servers or users we are removing right now but we are aware of Centipede Central,&#8221; Eros Resmini, CMO of Discord, told me in an emailed statement. &#8220;We can share that when we are made aware of violations of our community guidelines via any channel, we take immediate action and investigate the server and\/or individuals.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> Resmini also provided a statement regarding the shutdown of altright.com&#8217;s server: <\/p>\n<p> &#8220;We unequivocally condemn white supremacy, neonazism, or any other group, term, ideology that is based on these beliefs. &#8230; We will continue to be aggressive to ensure that Discord exists for the community we set out to support\u2014gamers.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p> A Centipede Central admin posted an announcement in the server following Discord&#8217;s statements, explaining that anyone breaking Discord&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/discordapp.com\/terms\" target=\"_blank\">Terms of Service<\/a> would be removed. Members&#8217; reactions ran the gamut:<\/p>\n<div class=\"article__media\"><picture class=\"article__image\"><source media=\"(max-width: 25em)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1502750144118-Screen-Shot-2017-08-14-at-50726-PM.png?resize=400:*, https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1502750144118-Screen-Shot-2017-08-14-at-50726-PM.png?resize=600:* 2x\"><source media=\"(max-width: 40.625em)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1502750144118-Screen-Shot-2017-08-14-at-50726-PM.png?resize=650:*, https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1502750144118-Screen-Shot-2017-08-14-at-50726-PM.png?resize=975:* 2x\"><source media=\"(max-width: 53.125em)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1502750144118-Screen-Shot-2017-08-14-at-50726-PM.png?resize=850:*, https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1502750144118-Screen-Shot-2017-08-14-at-50726-PM.png?resize=1275:* 2x\"><source media=\"(min-width: 53.125em)\" srcset=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1502750144118-Screen-Shot-2017-08-14-at-50726-PM.png?resize=850:*\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/_uncategorized\/1502750144118-Screen-Shot-2017-08-14-at-50726-PM.png\" alt=\"\"><\/picture>\n<div class=\"article__image-caption\">A screenshot of the statement from the Centipede Central server.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p> The lead admin for Centipede Central, who goes by the name Based, told Motherboard that Discord developers showed up in their server today. &#8220;I think they&#8217;re monitoring, weighing whether or not they&#8217;re going to let us stay or not,&#8221; Based said in a voice chat. &#8220;They&#8217;re going to have to draw a line somewhere. I&#8217;m banking on them drawing the line\u2014we&#8217;re the limit of where they&#8217;re willing to let political servers go. We&#8217;re not going to be encouraging violence or glorifying it.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p> Though there are &#8220;a lot of users in our server who identify as white nationalists,&#8221; Based said, they aren&#8217;t planning to drive them out unless they start supporting or inciting violence. <\/p>\n<p>The difference between the posts in Centipede Central and the altright.com server is that the altright server&#8217;s users support the driver of the car that killed one person and injured several others at the rally, Based said. &#8220;From my perspective, it looks to me like he murdered or was trying to murder people, and that&#8217;s completely outside what I would consider good behavior or anything you want to associate with. We&#8217;re taking a hard line against that kind of stuff. I don&#8217;t care what side you&#8217;re on\u2014right or left, you shouldn&#8217;t have to worry about getting beat up.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p> Based said that while the Centipede Central server did have an announcement about the Unite the Right rally, admins didn&#8217;t know it would become violent. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think any of us had an inclination it would be a tiki torch march down the middle of campus and a day of extreme violence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> Based added that admins are telling members to &#8220;friend&#8221; the staff of the channel on Discord, so that if the server is shut down, they can regroup in a new channel. &#8220;We&#8217;ve been on discord for over a year and a half now\u2014if they shut us down, we&#8217;ll regroup on discord and do some things different if we can to stay alive.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p> <i>Jason Koebler contributed reporting.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/zmmxje\/pro-trump-discord-server-centipede-central-says-its-being-monitored\" target=\"bwo\" >https:\/\/motherboard.vice.com\/en_us\/rss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/articles\/5992154f96bf1524041625ed\/lede\/1502749928113-shutterstock_657668932.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Credit to Author: Samantha  Cole| Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2017 22:40:46 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The r\/The_Donald offshoot is taking Discord\u2019s crackdown as a warning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10643,13328,10378],"tags":[2507,13659,13656,13658,152,13657],"class_list":["post-8729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-independent","category-motherboard","category-security","tag-alt-right","tag-centipede-central","tag-discord","tag-the-donald","tag-trump","tag-white-nationalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}