Voat has received a DMCA takedown request on behalf of Black Rifle Coffee Company® regarding the following user account: @BlackRifleCoffeeCo.

The peculiar situation with this DMCA request is that the user @BlackRifleCoffeeCo permanently deleted their profile on 2018-10-10. Majority of the time this would suffice to satisfy a company like Black Rifle Coffee Company®, but they have persisted to have this user account completely wiped off of Voat (ghosted).

The problem we have at Voat with fulfilling this request, is that we don't have any way to permanently ghost an account. Since we value transparency, it simply isn't possible with the code we've written unless we go in and 'spez' the data itself.

In full disclosure, it appears this account was not affiliated with Black Rifle Coffee Company®, so they have every right to want it disassociated with their trademark. The unfortunate thing is that when I realized who this company was, I attempted to contact the CEO personally to discuss the difficulties with this on our end. I just figured, naively, that a 2nd Amendment company (BRCC) and a 1st Amendment company (Voat) could work out an issue the old-fashioned way. Needless to say, I was never able to 'get past the receptionist' so to speak.

The reason I am bringing this up is for a couple reasons.

1. We at Voat have gotten used to a free-for-all website, but that isn't actually true. We have to operate within the confines of the law, and DMCA takedown requests are a law we have to follow.

2. Any subverse or username that infringes on a trademark has to be taken down if we receive a valid DMCA request from the trademark owner.

3. Voat will publicly post all DMCA takedown requests in which we modify content (data) to satisfy.

Black Rifle Coffee Company®'s DMCA request to CloudFlare

Now to figure out how to do this.

If you guys have any ideas on how we can satisfy DMCA requests like this and still log that they occurred, I’m all ears. These situations are likely to only increase.

Edit 1

Voat has reluctantly complied with this request. Access to 'claimed infringement' has been disabled.

Edit 2

Since very few read:

TL;DR: Account was already wiped as user had deleted the account months ago (i.e. Voat did NOT delete any submissions or comments). Actions against Voat continued despite this. Voat made the account 'disappear' after posting this submission in order to fully comply with request.

In this particular situation, given the context and all things considered, this is the best option for Voat.