The Headlines

The site behind the antisemitic highway banner is removed from internet. But another quickly takes its place.

(J. the Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) – Goyim TV, an antisemitic video-sharing website that was promoted with a “banner drop” from a Los Angeles freeway overpass on Saturday, August 29, has been taken down by its domain host under a flood of complaints. Jon Minadeo Jr., 37, was behind both the website and the banner drop, J. the Jewish News of Northern California reported earlier this week, as were a handful of Minadeo cronies known as the “Goyim Defense League.”

However, just days after Goyim TV was taken offline, Minadeo directed his followers to a similar site – disseminating the same hateful ideology – on BitChute, a U.K.-based company described by a London-based Jewish security firm as a “cesspool” of racist and antisemitic content. It reportedly solicits financial support via cryptocurrency.

The rapid resurfacing of Minadeo’s videos, on a different channel, reflects the challenge of controlling hate-spewing websites on the internet. It appears that is exactly what happened with Goyim TV, which had been hosted since December by Epik, a domain registrar with more than 560,000 websites, according to DomainState.

The three hastily painted banners promoting Goyim TV – which read “Honk if you know the Jews want a race war” and were hung above the busy I-405 freeway – shocked the Los Angeles Jewish community and captured the attention of organizations such as the American Jewish Committee and the ADL. In response to the incident, a spokesperson for Epik said that the company received a number of “anonymous Gmail reports” taking issue with their hosting of the site. The Epik spokesperson said that the company had been receiving complaints from both those demanding the website be taken down, and those demanding the opposite. Many of the latter came with violent threats, some of which the spokesperson shared. he person said Epik removed the website “within hours” of receiving complaints, and after attempts to get the platform owner to remove the objectionable content failed.

By Thursday, the BitChute-hosted channel – called Handsome Truth GDL (for Goyim Defense League) – was publishing the same content from the old Goyim TV site, including wild antisemitic conspiracy theories, cell-phone footage of Minadeo and others driving around California and shouting antisemitic phrases (often through a megaphone) and other far-right fringe conspiracy theories. BitChute, according to the company, earns $23,485 per month via what it calls community funding sources. The switch was written about on Twitter, where Minadeo’s account, Handsome Truth, remains active. It was implied that the takedown was, naturally, a Jewish conspiracy.

Main Photo: A view of the banner on Los Angeles’ I-405 highway captured by a Twitter user. (Siamak Kordestani/Twitter)

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