Antifa.com now redirects to the White Houses website. This doesnt mean anything. – Mashable

Hours after Joe Bidens inauguration, conservative personalities are rehashing an old disinformation campaign surrounding the antifa.com website.

If you go to antifa.com right now, youll find that the URL now takes you to the White Houses official .gov website.

Does this mean that the Biden administration owns the domain name antifa.com? Or is an official antifa entity showcasing their support for the new Democratic administration? No.

It doesn't likely mean anything, since anyone who owns any domain name can redirect it to any website. A domain name owner does not need any sort of affiliation, connection, or permission from a website owner to do so.

According to the Internet Archives Wayback Machine, the antifa.com domain name started forwarding to Joe Bidens official transition website, BuildBackBetter.gov sometime earlier this month. Then, on January 20, antifa.com began redirecting to WhiteHouse.gov.

This same misinformation about antifa.com came up during the summer when the domain started forwarding people to Joe Bidens official campaign website. As Mashable pointed out at that time, this doesnt mean anything.

Could Joe Biden or someone connected to the 46th president own the domain? Sure, its possible. Could the domain be owned by a troll or someone looking to create easily generate some sort of controversy? Also, possible.

Its not clear at this moment who owns the domain antifa.com.

The owner uses privacy protection to obfuscate their contact information in the domains whois results. Due to this, the owner of the domain is listed as WhoisGuard, a company run by the U.S.-based domain registrar, Namecheap.

However, that hasnt stopped right-wing influencers like Laura Loomer and Ryan Fournier, who have large followings on the messaging platform Telegram, from directing their fans to type in the URL themselves. These personalities have been spreading misinformation about the domain redirect in an attempt to tie the new Biden administration to an anti-right wing groups alleged official website.

But, even more important to note, there is no official antifa organization, meaning there is no entity to even create an "official" antifa website. Antifa simply stands for antifacist.

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Antifa.com now redirects to the White Houses website. This doesnt mean anything. - Mashable