Someone did not want you to watch the new documentary “What is a Woman?” so badly that they launched a cyberattack against The Daily Wire.
On Wednesday night, the documentary — in which commentator Matt Walsh upends the gender ideology movement by asking one simple question — premiered via live stream to Daily Wire subscribers. However, many users had difficulty accessing the film as The Daily Wire’s site was hammered with one million requests per minute.
Daily Wire Co-CEO Jeremy Boreing confirmed later in the evening that the site was hit by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack — in which hackers disrupt a website by flooding it with bot traffic. Picture a highway ramp congested with empty cars such that drivers cannot access the road, or a crowd of people blocking a door such that no one can walk through.
“We are working to address these challenges in real time,” Boreing said. “Even so, the premiere had more viewers than any stream in the history of the site. A huge success for an amazing film.”
“Someone doesn’t want you to see this movie. See it anyway.”
Malicious actors often try to use DDoS attacks to disrupt companies as they provide services to their customers. In 2017, for instance, Google was hit by a group using internet service providers in China with an attack that peaked at 2.5 terabytes per second. In 2020, Amazon Web Services was slammed with a 2.3 terabyte per second attack.
It is not unprecedented for hackers to leverage DDoS attacks for political purposes. A 2015 attack against code-sharing site GitHub was specifically targeted at sites the Chinese government did not want its people to see.
Sound familiar?
“What is a Woman?” became available to Daily Wire subscribers on the first day of “Pride Month” — in which some LGBTQ activists ramp up their efforts to promulgate radical gender ideology. The film tackles issues such as sex-change operations and hormone blockers for children, transgender athletes’ upending of women’s sports, and university gender studies departments.
“It’s the most important documentary in America,” Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro said. “That’s why so many people want to stop you from seeing it. Go to whatisawoman.com right now and subscribe to help us keep producing the kinds of content that explodes the woke agenda.”
Walsh sits down with medical professionals, activists, lawmakers, and many other promulgators of radical gender theory in a search for the answer to a very simple question — “What is a woman?” He is repeatedly met with deflections and character accusations.
This is why they don’t want you to see #WhatIsAWoman. It’s because of moments like this. Gender ideology is an insane, incoherent mess. pic.twitter.com/p5m2RIbKff
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) June 2, 2022
He also interviews clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, theologian Carl Trueman, and multiple women forced to compete against biological men in sports — including a female teammate of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas.
At one point, Walsh travels halfway across the globe to seek answers from the Maasai people of Kenya — who, despite their lack of exposure to gender studies coursework, seem to have a far better grip on biology than many Americans brandishing their PhDs.
Here’s a nice video to share for #PrideMonth. I spoke to an African tribe about transgenderism. The Left claims that traditional cultures have fluid notions of gender. That’s… not exactly what I found.
More in the full film, What Is A Woman, premiering tonight on the Daily Wire pic.twitter.com/WbU6s8Y2Q5
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) June 1, 2022
Despite the hackers’ best efforts, the premiere of “What is a Woman?” was the most trafficked live stream The Daily Wire has ever experienced — and the company added more paid subscribers than any other previous day in its history.