Meet The Man Behind Epik, The Tech Firm Keeping Far-Right Websites Alive

When websites flooded with hate speech or harmful disinformation become too radioactive for the Internet, the sites often turn to one company for a lifeline.

That company is run by Rob Monster, a 53-year-old Dutch-American.

"If you wanted to cast a villain who was going to be the Lex Luther of the Internet, Rob Monster is about as good as it gets," he joked during a recent interview at his lakeside home in the former logging community of Sammamish, Wash., outside of Seattle.

Monster's website-services company Epik, which calls itself "the Swiss bank of the domain industry," kept a fairly modest profile for years by buying and selling popular names like Diamond.com and 3D.com.