Domains are rarely blocked based on web content
The company ISNIC – Internet in Iceland hf. deactivated the Kiwifarms.is domain this morning. This is confirmed by Jens Pétur Jensen, managing director of ISNIC in an interview with mbl.is and says that it was registered in 2016.
Jens also adds that he neither practices approval nor has domain registration. It takes place without the involvement of a third party and the use is always the responsibility of the rightful owner of the domain.
“It’s similar to when you sign up somewhere online for some service, you start creating a username and then you register a domain name and maybe 20 steps later it’s up and running.” We never know anything about the domains, they are almost 86 thousand and are used for all kinds of things all over the internet.”
The Kiwi Farms website is highly controversial, but its users are known for persecuting trans and queer people. At least three have taken their own lives in connection with the constant attacks by users.
Incorrect domain registration the most common problem
“There is a process with us that is well-known that there is a tip about, for example, wrong domain registration, which is by far the most common reason why a domain is blocked. This is because the beneficiary has not provided correct information about himself to ISNIC.
It is one of the rules for domain registration, then it has been broken and many domains are blocked on that basis,” says Jens.
He says it is very rare that domains are blocked based on content on a website.
Will be inactive over the weekend
“ISNIC has a service that many people use and we call it HFP, which stands for Hosting, Forwarding and Parking. We can be caught not having that service with a certain hosting provider.”
The domain was parked at ISNIC, which is a pending status. “The domain still exists but it is inactive in DNS, it will be used for email while it is there,” says Jens.
He could not say why the domain was disabled, but said it would be down at least through the weekend.
“ISNIC intervened this morning, but as long as this process is going on, which needs to be accounted for and send us adequate data about its existence, then someone with authority would have to decide whether the domain would be closed,” says Jens and applies to the police or the judiciary.