Twitter deletes Daily Stormer's accounts amid outrage at neo-Nazi site's response to Charlottesville

The violence in Charlottesville has triggered international outcry

Twitter has suspended several accounts linked to one of the most influential neo-Nazi websites - the latest action from social media firms against white supremacists in the aftermath of the deadly violence in Charlottesville.

While Twitter Inc would not discuss individual accounts, reports said at least three accounts affiliated with the Daily Stormer led to pages saying “account suspended”.

Reuters said the San Francisco-based social network prohibits violent threats, harassment and hateful conduct and “will take action on accounts violating those policies”, according to a company statement.

Facebook has taken down several pages from Facebook and Instagram in recent days that it said were associated with hate speech or hate organisations.

Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin could not immediately be reached for comment, the news agency said.

The white supremacist website helped organise the weekend rally in Charlottesville where a 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer, was killed and 19 people were injured when a man allegedly drove a car into a crowd protesting the white nationalist gathering. A 20-year-old man from Ohio has been charged with murder.

On Wednesday, hundreds of people packed a historic theatre in Charlottesville to honour Ms Heyer, a paralegal who was devoted to social justice.

“My child’s famous final Facebook post said ‘If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention’,” said her mother, Susan Bro. “My, did she make us pay attention. We talked about all the stuff that caught her attention.”

The Daily Stormer has been accessible only intermittently the past few days after domain providers GoDaddy Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google Domains said they would not serve the website.

By Wednesday, Daily Stormer had moved to a Russia-based internet domain, with an address ending in .ru.

Facebook confirmed on Monday that it took down the event page that was used to promote and organise the so-called Unite the Right” rally, saying it was ‘actively removing any posts that glorify the horrendous act committed in Charlottesville”.

It subsequently removed accounts belonging to Chris Cantwell, a web commentator who has described himself as a white nationalist and said on his site that he had attended the Charlottesville rally.