The number 1 criteria is jurisdiction.
Domain Names
“.com”, “.net”, “.org”, “.co”, .or “.us” domain names are subject to US laws, so choose something else.
Technically, pretty much every TLD can stop your use if you do something wrong/illegal on your website – list here from EFF
If you maintain a normal/legal presence elsewhere, like the socials or another site that ranks well for your name, you can quite easily change URL if there is a problem.
.is (Iceland) seems quite safe unless you are extreme – they took down Pirate Bay and some heavy Islamic stuff.
Epik famously don’t respond to takedown requests, and look after the domains and hosting of numerous extreme web sites. How they manage that in the US is hard to fathom, and their location is a potential risk one day.
Blockchain domains combine accepting crypto payments and hosting that cannot be censored (they are outside of the official domain name system, and a browser plugin is needed)
Hosting – US
Epik are affordable and (so far) a safe haven.
NearlyFreeSpeech have been around since 2002 and their hosting is incredibly cheap, but you will need some tech skills. They are self-proclaimed libertarians and fly under the radar. Just don’t do anything illegal (according to US law) or against copyright.
RightForge – hosting Trumps Truth Social, and also are a domain registrar.
Hosting – Non-US
Just like how criminal fugitives flee to counties without extradition treaties, choose a hosting company in a land that doesn’t play that game.
Iceland
Read about how excellent Iceland is for web freedom. They have a prominent political party that promotes piracy! Estonia are ranked second, but why go for second?
OrangeWebsite – take privacy seriously, including accepting BitCoin. Their site is very dated but that often means they simply aren’t fancy. They do not hand over any data on their accounts without an Icelandic court order.
Liberty VPS are similar, and also accept BTC. Icelandic but servers are in The Netherlands.
Flokinet also accept BTC, and say they “provide a safe harbor for freedom of speech, free press and whistleblower projects.” They have their own legal department! And they let you host .onion sites.
Seychelles
Another freedom host is Impreza, who are based in the Seychelles, but have servers around the world, including Iceland.
Belize
OffshoreDedi‘s servers are in Bulgaria, Ukraine and The Netherlands. They are very upfront in saying they will ignore DMCA take-down notices.
Netherlands
Flaunt7 will also ignore DMCA notices.
…and for receiving payments in the US, sites like Gab have been using https://www.paralleleconomy.com/
https://www.secondamendmentprocessing.com/
