WordPress Shuts Down Controversial Anti-Islam Site

by Jeffrey Scott Shapiro

An anti-Islam blog that failed to remove inflammatory comments from a few of its readers will be permanently taken down by its hosting company, WordPress, on January 6 as the result of a number of complaints filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

The site, “Bare Naked Islam: It isn’t Islamophobia when they really ARE trying to kill you” (www.barenakedislam.com) will be taken down in two weeks by WordPress according to the website’s owner, Bonnie (*last name withheld).

Bonnie, in an exclusive interview, told Big Government that WordPress suddenly blocked her site “around Thanksgiving” and sent her a message to contact them because the company had some questions about comments that had been left on her site.

“There were some not so nice comments in responses to stories about Muslims killing people and raping little girls,” she said. The comments, she said, “are always a reaction to the stories,” that are posted, “although I do moderate the comments. I sometimes skim through the ones from people I know, and I mistakenly let some go through that were threatening. One was about burning a mosque, one said ‘nuke the Middle East…’.”

Bonnie says that one of the concerns WordPress had was a comment in which someone mentioned a specific mosque in Virginia and another reader responded that they walked by that mosque every day. According to WordPress, the language of the post could have been inciting violence or suggesting an attack on a particular place at a specific time.

She added, “They (WordPress) didn’t say anything about my writing, it was all about the commenters.” Bonnie said that she even permitted WordPress to remove all comments up to November 26th to avoid another incident.

I had thousands, and I’m sure there were some that were not so nice, so I told them just erase all the prior comments…I was posting a new story yesterday, and then all of a sudden I couldn’t do anything anymore and it was deactivated. WordPress said to contact them, and I did, and all they said was, “you’re blocked for violating TOS” (terms of service) and they didn’t say what it was. They said there were no inquiries and no appeals, but that I’d have 14 days to export my blog to another site….Then I saw the press releases from CAIR saying they went after my site.

CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper defended the organization’s decision to monitor the site, and said that it had also contacted the FBI about the site on prior occasions. The FBI reportedly told CAIR that they would “look into the matter.” Hooper:

There are thousands of anti-Muslim hate sites and we don’t say anything about them because if people say they hate Islam and they want it destroyed they have that right. But, if someone says I go by this specific mosque every day and I want to burn it down or here’s how you desecrate a mosque and I encourage you to go do this, that’s a little beyond the pale.

From Hooper’s perspective, the incitement comments were not limited to the commenters.

She would delete the word, presumably “shoot” or “kill.” and put asterisks in their place as if that made a difference. This wasn’t just the commenting people–it was the blogger herself, she was encouraging them saying you should desecrate a mosque, she would encourage them and agree with them.

Bonnie says that although Wordpress will remove her site from their content management system on January 6th, she feels confident the page will resurface. She says that she has been talking to a group of former Muslims who have since renounced their religion who have pledged to host the site.

*Reporter’s Note: The source, whose first name is actually Bonnie, only did the interview on the condition that her last name would be withheld for safety reasons since she says she “gets lots of death threats.”


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Posted Jan 2nd 2012 at 2:01 pm in News | 176 Comments