White supremacist Christopher Cantwell banned from dating site OkCupid

If you had your heart set on a date with an infamous neo-Nazi then bad news: dating site OkCupid took the unusual step of banning one individual who participated in last weekend’s rally in Virginia for life on Thursday, and naming them publicly.

“We were alerted that white supremacist Chris Cantwell was on OkCupid”, the site announced on their Twitter account. “Within 10 minutes we banned him for life”.

Cantwell featured prominently in Vice’s documentary on the ‘Unite the Right’ white nationalist rally in Charlottesville that caught global attention after it descended into violence, leading to the death of one counter-protester.

In the video Cantwell, a march organiser, used a number of racist and anti-semitic slurs. “We’re not non-violent”, he declared at one point in the documentary. “We’ll f***ing kill these people if we f***ing have to”.

In a later video Cantwell posted online himself, the white nationalist tearfully complained that he was under threat of arrest and was “terrified” that police were going to kill him.

In announcing his ban, OkCupid said “There is no room for hate in a place where you’re looking for love”.

The company also urged users to remain vigilant and alert them if any similar figures are found on the site.

“If any OkCupid members come across people involved in hate groups, please report it immediately”, they said.

When told that OkCupid had shut down his account, Cantwell told USA Today: “Hahaha! Okcupid shut me down? These k**** will stop at nothing!”

Cantwell, a former IT worker, was also banned from Facebook, Instagram and YouTube in the wake of his sudden infamy.

His OkCupid profile, now available thanks to the wonders of Google Cache, describes him as “a professional podcaster and writer specializing in controversial political satire”.

Beneath the heading ‘I spend a lot of time thinking about’, Cantwell answers: “Getting married, and how to stop the Democrat party from destroying Western Civilization”.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, race is an important factor in his ideal partner.

Cantwell asks fellow users to message him if “You are white, in reasonably good shape, value intelligence, and are serious about getting married and having kids, but reasonable enough to know our relationship begins on a much less serious footing”.

The site also announced it would be donating to a Charlottesville victim relief group supporting victims of attacks at the rally last Saturday.

“We were alerted by another dater on OkCupid who had been contacted by Cantwell recently”, spokeswoman Melissa Hobley told HuffPost. “We wasted no time ― we quickly verified that it was indeed him and shut down his account”.

It’s not the only dating app cracking down on racist accounts, meanwhile. In an email to all users, Bumble announced it was working with the Anti-Defamation League to learn how to identify hate symbols and use their research and terminology as their standards.