Folks,
Here is my official statement:
Freedom of speech and expression are fundamental rights in a free society. We enter into a slippery slope when we start to limit speech that makes us uncomfortable. The censorship we’ve seen across major social media platforms as of late has created a vacuum. Our services fill the ever growing need for a neutral service provider that will not arbitrarily terminate accounts based on social or political pressure. Our philosophy is, if the customer is not breaking the law, providers of technology should apply discernment in determining whether or not to service.
Specific to any of the “Chan” sites, Epik did not solicit this business. We have also not made a definitive decision about whether to provide DDoS mitigation or Content Delivery services for them. We will evaluate this in the coming days. From what little we know so far, the Chans are not lawless and do have moderation, especially in regards to DMCA and content which is illegal in the United States. Ultimately, we believe that "sunlight is the best disinfectant" and that exposing hateful ideas is necessary if they are to be defeated. However this must absolutely occur within the bounds of the law.
As for core Epik, we are all systems go, including the parking landers, etc.. We had some short outages this morning but recovered quickly. Resiliency is evident.
As for BitMitigate, we hope to have that back online soon following the underwhelming action taken by one of our network providers that are part of of our global CDN. The technology is impressive but it does rely on trusted peers.
Hosting customers at Epik and Sibyl were generally not impacted.
The Anonymize WHOIS privacy service continued to work normally. The Anonymize VPN service also was not impacted for existing users.
Specific to the "Chan" content, I have barely ever visited any of them, have never registered. I also have no doubt that the sites allow cringeworthy content. This seems politically motivated with a determined and capable sponsor.
For those who missed it, we did not go looking for any "Chan" business. It is a rather sad state of the world when one company in the whole world becomes the provider of last resort for lawful free speech.
Once the dust settles, I do plan to address a few themes in this thread. In the meantime, I am a little disappointed by some of the rhetoric I have read so far.
Thanks
Rob Monster
Founder/CEO
Epik Holdings Inc.