The moderators of the pirate streaming site Soap2day announce they are shutting down all of their websites once and for all. The announcement came on Tuesday, June 13, 2023, with a short message on the homepage and a sympathetic apology.
The site moderators left a note reading, “Hello guys, we’ve decided to close Soap2day forever.” The moderators highlighted the word forever and gave a shot goodbye saying, “We are very sorry 🙂.” Following this, all the domains managed by them shut down.
Why did moderators shut down Soap2day?
The moderators of Soap2day, a one-stop platform for all the pirated content from across various paid subscription services such as Netflix, announce they are shutting down their sites forever. They gave a curt note with an apology and closed the websites.
- The users who opened the sites, Soap2day.to, Soap2day.im, Soap2day.is, and Soap2day.se faced a tab titled “Soap2day is closed.” This sudden shutdown devasted many who depended on the websites for a daily dose of entertainment.
Reason of https://t.co/LNk0djYVfo and it's official domains being taken down is still unknown.
Reasons of it being taken down was probably because:
– Costing of servers
– They didn't want to do it anymore
– The Government probably told the Soap2day Team to take down the site. https://t.co/AMiCadcgok— Soap2day Updates (Read Bio and Pin) (@S2DayUnofficial) June 13, 2023
The moderators haven’t specified the reasons behind their sudden decision, but the site’s traffic or number of users is an unlikely cause. The unofficial account of Soap2day, which shared updates about the site, listed three possible reasons for the site’s closure- server cost, government notice, or simply because the moderators didn’t wish to continue.
Soap2day was on a successful climb
Soap2day was immensely popular, with 108 million visitors per month. According to the data of SimilarWeb, the site’s traffic was notably improving all year, with 84.2 million visits in January, 93.6 million visitors in February, and over 100 million visitors from March to May. These numbers exceed the total traffic of many popular piracy sites such as RARBG, YTS, anime torrent NYAA, FMovies, and others.
All the domains, including soap2day.ac, soap2day.sh, soap2day.mx, s2dfree.to, s2dfree.cc, s2dfree.de, s2dfree.is, s2dfree.nl were also curated to avoid site-blocking measures and search engine delisting and deindexing programs. Due to this, the site’s sudden closer left its millions of users baffled and devastated.
Anti-piracy groups are a possible reason behind the shutdown of Soap2day
In the recent past, many of the famous piracy platforms, including Zlibrary shut down. These torrent and piracy sites constantly face pressure from anti-piracy groups around the world. In 2021, the popular subscription streaming site Netflix obtained an order from the High Court to block Soap2day’s domains in the United Kingdom.
https://twitter.com/angelicunty/status/1668595073297297408?t=inhjUmuY4h4_kAmhkMjexA&s=19
The Motion Picture Association and Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment obtained an order from the court of United States with intentions to unmask the moderators in March 2022. Soap2day’s major traffic comes from the United States, which makes it a potential competitor for other subscription streaming sites.
- Later in the same year, Motion Pictures Association reported the site to the government of the United States. They argued that the site, with its immense traffic, is already blocked in various nations around the globe, including Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. They also claimed that the site has ‘connections’ with China, possibly aiming for a ban similar to TikTok.
- Soap2day is also listed in the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit’s ‘Infringing Website List‘ of October 2022 and, within weeks, received a subpoena from Motion Pictures Association.
What a bummer. Please share alternatives. #soap2day #soapgate #movies #series #movielinks #serieslinks pic.twitter.com/QPPauBW5aV
— Nkosana23 (@labrizia23) June 13, 2023
Following the shutdown of Soap2day, many copycat sites are circulating online, attempting to dump malware into the visitor’s devices. Hence, users searching for alternatives must be aware of various sites’ potential risks.
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