The website Antifa.com automatically redirects to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign site in what appears to be the work of an unknown prankster.
Social media users first noticed Anifa.com was redirecting to Biden’s campaign website in late August, and since then prominent supporters of President Donald Trump such as Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz have insinuated that the phenomenon proves that Biden is linked to the violent leftist movement.
But Biden campaign Digital Director Rob Flaherty rejected the notion that the campaign had any involvement in Antifa.com, tweeting in late August that whoever owns the website is redirecting to Biden’s page as part of a prank.
Biden denounced Antifa by name during an interview Monday, saying he condemns “violence no matter who it is.” (RELATED: Joe Biden Condemns Antifa, ‘Violence No Matter Who It Is’)
So Twitter has now blocked the site as a “potentially malicious” site.
Spoiler: it redirects to the Biden campaign webpage. pic.twitter.com/WVh8Utzc8b
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 2, 2020
A website owner can easily forward their visitors to any website of their choosing. Whoever owns and operates Antifa.com has the ability to redirect to Biden’s website without having to coordinate with the former vice president’s campaign.
It’s unclear who owns Antifa.com. Publicly available internet records from ICANN show that the domain was created in 2002, but the records don’t disclose its owner. An archived version of the website in 2008 shows that its owner had put the domain on sale for $14,410. The site was soliciting offers for potential buyers as recently as January 2020, web archives show.
Web archives show that between May 31 and July 24, Antifa.com took the form of a basic website purporting to offer resources for people seeking to join Antifa. But by Aug. 8 those resources were taken offline and the site began redirecting to JoeBiden.com.
Also in August, Antifa.com for brief periods of time redirected to KamalaHarris.org and the Antifa news site It’s Going Down before redirecting once more to Biden’s site, according to USA Today.
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