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Best registrars with a great reputation for freedom of speech
Like with my other thread about the best US-based registrars with really good and fast customer service, separately, I am also looking for the best registrars with a great reputation for freedom of speech.
- Preferably US-based, but does not have to be US-based
- Track record of resistance to groups who falsely accuse about abuse and political bias
- Has a solid company culture of respecting freedom of speech
- Preferably has good customer service
- No big scandals like Epik, etc...
- Has Whois privacy, BUT anonymous domain ownership NOT needed (i.e.: Njalla-type service not needed)
- This is for freedom of speech, NOT about DMCA-ignore - however, they do need to have a very good procedure so they are not trigger-happy about taking down domains falsely accused of DMCA or other similar issues
Comments
I think Gandi fits all of those, not US though.
Not true, they will kick you out for anything that isn't left leaning or far-left.
They will also accuse of things that never happened just to get you out. They are absolute garbage.
Red flag.
Any registar based out of France or Germany claiming to support freedom of speech is lying. Both countries are ruled by communist neo-libs that want to totally exterminate the other political side however they can.
Both countries are on the verge of collapsing because of their far-left political decisions.
One call from terrorist org like ADL, and you are flying out in a matter of seconds, no court order needed.
They will happily host Antifa calling for death of their enemies, but if you represent equally extremist views but from the right side - you are out. Flokinet is a good example of that, they are also Germans that claim to offer freedom of speech, but in reality they don't.
I think crazydomains.com is a good choice
I've actually experienced problems with political and religious satire
I think crazydomains handles this issue very well
Wait for NameCrane?
Happened to the Kiwifarms:
Francisco
https://incognet.io/anonymous-domains
@MannDude
He's still at the mercy of whomever he resells.
Francisco
I see Daily Stormer uses PublicDomainRegistry (PDR) with their domain listed on Wikipedia.
Don't know if it is a solid choice, the site management is probably expecting to get their domain(s) suspended at some random moment.
For sure but at least you're getting someone you can talk to and has some clue about these topics.
guess rocksolid... in 2028?
I don't think NameCheap or IBS is known for pulling domains for controversial speech, are they? We've definitely got some domains that'd fall into this category and haven't had any issues from them.
We already disallow and screen for obvious phishing and domains we suspect will be used for abuse.
Either way, will be reselling Namecrane once that's ready.
They are great in terms of free speech, not as good as Epik obviously, but good enough.
Doxbin use/d them for a long time.
Exactly. Now, it's hard telling what their stance would be should some large targeted woke Twitter mob started actively campaigning against them... But we've definitely registered a handful of controversial domains that any major registar could easily have a filter/screen for if they didn't want stuff like that registered.
If you're truly hosting controversial stuff and attract that level of reaction from online basement dwellers, best course of action is to have your eggs in different baskets anyway. Register the .com there, the .net over there, the .cx here, the whatever wherever. Spread that stuff out.
But as we've all observed with KiwiFarms, it doesn't really matter how much you support freedom of speech or how deep your pockets is: Everything available through the internet more or less has an upstream outside of your control that may be more likely to take action, even if unjustified.
No no, this year. Promise.
Francisco
Lmao, registrars fault I didn’t backup
They could be sued for what they did, that's straight up defamation.
Everyone can be sued for anything.
Of course, but it doesn't mean you gonna win
In Gandi case, they fucked up big time. But what to expect from French company, they are forced by the Govt to destroy freedom of speech while "friendly immigrants" rape women in Paris and aren't prosecuted for it.
Bruh moment
Hurr durr immigurr
Unless of course you're Russian, and then they'll plan to terminate all of your domains with a few days notice.
Francisco
You don’t hire any immigrants (rapists) right? Asking for a friend
well, if they register over Incognet, namecheap(nor incognet) will know they are russians
Bingo.
My point is they aren't a neutral registrar and will make choices based on personal/political beliefs. The topic is about freedom of speech registrars.
Internet.bs is likely neutral until they find some old ass complaint then yeet you for 5 days because they have 1 guy that comes in part time on Friday afternoon to process tickets. We had a run in with them multiple times now where someone got comp'd on BuyShared and the abuser was using our whitelabel domain to push their crap. We suspended the user quickly. 6 months later internet.bs suspends the domain for the complaint, not verifying it at all.
Francisco
I agree.
Thanks guys. I've used almost all the ones mentioned, but I'm still figuring out which registrars to put my most sensitive domains in, when push comes to shove. Thanks again for the all the comments and recommendations.
One strategy that makes a lot of sense to me is to spread the domains around as @MannDude suggested, so I'll look at that too.
BTW, like I mentioned, Whois privacy is important, but anonymous domain ownership is not needed. And I respect @MannDude's stance on freedom of speech, but the anonymous domain ownership reselling approach he offers is a different kind of situation. That's a privacy abstraction feature, which is also something important to many people, but not needed in my case. I have no problem with the registrar knowing who I am, I just don't want them to shut down the domain because of mob or political pressure. Which happens way too often!
Now I haven't had a viral situation yet that has awakened a mob that then forces a registrar to bow down to their demands, which is indeed one of the things I'm trying to avoid (among other similar kinds of events). But it's a matter of time. What I'm posting would ( or at least should ) be considered protected speech by the vast majority of freedom-of-speech advocates in the US, but sadly it's also the kind of thing that gets attacked and sometimes successfully squashed by the mob.
And to clarify, none of the content on my domains is illegal, and none of it is hate speech (which is another conversation BTW re: the context of what freedom of speech/press is), but since the mob doesn't care about any kind of sanity sometimes, and most online mobs tend to have a bias in one political direction in the US these days, I've seen enough examples of registrars (and hosting providers, etc.) giving in to pressure that doesn't even make sense with their own TOS/AUP. It's amazing how quickly some providers will wash their hands of their own principles.
Anyway, thanks again, and let me know any other thoughts about this!
And yes, I'm looking forward to @Francisco's NameCrane. It's very sad what happened with Epik, too many problems and incidents to trust them again IMO, most of those problems self-inflicted. We need NameCrane asap, please.
This is precisely one of my concerns.
Its happened 2 - 3 times and is why we've disabled userdir on (almost?) all shared/reseller nodes. Lots of people use the whitelabel domains, or setup CNAME's to point their own domain to it, so it just ends up with us getting 100's of tickets about it. It's dumb when it would've taken a minute to check.
Francisco