8kun, previously called 8chan, Infinitechan or Infinitychan (stylized as ∞chan), is an
imageboard
An imageboard is a type of Internet forum that focuses on the posting of images, often alongside text and discussion. The first imageboards were created in Japan as an extension of the textboard concept. These sites later inspired the creation of ...
website composed of user-created
message board
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
s. An owner moderates each board, with minimal interaction from site administration.
The site has been linked to
white supremacism
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White s ...
,
neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism comprises the post–World War II militant, social, and political movements that seek to revive and reinstate Nazism, Nazi ideology. Neo-Nazis employ their ideology to promote hatred and Supremacism#Racial, racial supremacy (ofte ...
, the
alt-right,
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
and
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
,
hate crimes, and multiple
mass shooting
There is a lack of consensus on how to define a mass shooting. Most terms define a minimum of three or four victims of gun violence (not including the shooter or in an inner city) in a short period of time, although an Australian study from 20 ...
s.
The site has been known to host
child pornography
Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a ...
;
as a result, it was filtered out from
Google Search
Google Search (also known simply as Google) is a search engine provided by Google. Handling more than 3.5 billion searches per day, it has a 92% share of the global search engine market. It is also the most-visited website in the world.
The ...
in 2015.
Several of the site's boards played an active role in the
Gamergate
Gamergate may refer to:
* Gamergate (ant), a worker ant that can store sperm and reproduce sexually
* Gamergate (harassment campaign), targeting women in the video game industry
* Lt. Gamergate, a character in the ''Adventure Time'' episode " Den ...
harassment campaign, encouraging Gamergate affiliates to frequent 8chan after
4chan banned the topic. 8chan is the home of the discredited
QAnon conspiracy theory
QAnon ( , ) is an American political conspiracy theory and political movement. It originated in the American far-right political sphere in 2017. QAnon centers on fabricated claims made by an anonymous individual or individuals known as "Q". T ...
.
[Sources:
*
*
*
*
*
*
*]
Shortly before the
2019 El Paso shooting, a four-page message justifying the attack was posted to the site, and police have stated that they are "reasonably confident" it was posted by the perpetrator.
In the aftermath of the back-to-back mass shootings on August 3 in El Paso and
August 4 in Dayton, Ohio, respectively, the site was taken off
clearnet on August 5, 2019, when network infrastructure provider
Cloudflare
Cloudflare, Inc. is an American content delivery network and DDoS mitigation company, founded in 2009. It primarily acts as a reverse proxy between a website's visitor and the Cloudflare customer's hosting provider. Its headquarters are in San ...
stopped providing their
content delivery network
A content delivery network, or content distribution network (CDN), is a geographically distributed network of proxy servers and their data centers. The goal is to provide high availability and performance by distributing the service spatially rel ...
(CDN) service. Voxility, a web services company that had been renting servers to
Epik
Epik is a right-wing American domain registrar and web hosting company known for providing services to alt-tech websites that host far-right, neo-Nazi, and other extremist materials. It has been described as a haven for the far-right because of i ...
, the site's new domain registrar, as well as Epik's CDN provider subsidiary BitMitigate, also terminated service.
After several attempts to return to clearnet were ultimately stymied by providers denying service to 8chan, the site returned to the clearnet as ''8kun'' in November 2019 through a Russian hosting provider.
History
![8chan_logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/8chan_logo.svg)
8chan was created in October 2013 by computer programmer
Fredrick Brennan
Fredrick Robert Brennan (born February 21, 1994) is an American software developer and type designer who founded the imageboard website 8chan in 2013, before going on to repudiate it in 2019. Following 8chan's surge in popularity in 2014, larg ...
.
Brennan created the website after observing what he perceived to be rapidly escalating
surveillance and a loss of
free speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recog ...
on the Internet.
Brennan, who considered the imageboard
4chan to have grown into authoritarianism, described 8chan as a "free-speech-friendly" alternative,
and originally conceptualized the site while experiencing a
psychedelic mushrooms trip.
No experience or programming knowledge is necessary for users to create their own boards.
Since as early as March 2014, its
FAQ has stated only one rule that is to be globally enforced: "Do not post, request, or link to any content illegal in the United States of America. Do not create boards with the sole purpose of posting or spreading such content."
Brennan claimed that, while he found some of the content posted by users to be "reprehensible", he felt personally obligated to uphold the site's integrity by tolerating discussion he did not necessarily support regardless of his moral stance.
Brennan agreed to partner 8chan with the Japanese message board
2channel,
and subsequently relocated to the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
in October 2014.
In January 2015, the site changed its
domain
Domain may refer to:
Mathematics
*Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined
**Domain of definition of a partial function
**Natural domain of a partial function
**Domain of holomorphy of a function
* Do ...
after multiple people filed reports complaining to 8chan's
registrar
A registrar is an official keeper of records made in a register. The term may refer to:
Education
* Registrar (education), an official in an academic institution who handles student records
* Registrar of the University of Oxford, one of the se ...
that the message board hosted
child pornography
Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a ...
. Despite subsequently regaining the original domain, the site remained at the new domain with the old domain redirecting to it.
Numerous bugs in the Infinity software led to the funding and development of a successor platform dubbed "Infinity Next". After a several-month-long testing period, a migration to the new software was attempted in December 2015, but failed. In January 2016, development was halted, and the main developer,
Joshua Moon, was fired by Brennan. Brennan himself officially resigned in July 2016, turning the site over to its owner,
Jim Watkins and his son,
Ron Watkins
Ronald Watkins, also known by his online pseudonym CodeMonkeyZ, (born April 18, 1987) is an American Conspiracy theory, conspiracy theorist and site administrator of the imageboard website 8kun (formerly known as 8chan). He has played a major r ...
.
He cited the failure of the "Infinity Next" project and disillusionment with what 8chan had become as reasons.
August 2019 removal from clearnet
Following the
three shootings in 2019 (
Christchurch, New Zealand, in March;
Poway, California, in April;
El Paso, Texas, in August) in which the perpetrators of each used 8chan as a platform to spread their manifesto, there was increased pressure on those providing 8chan's Internet services to terminate their support.
Matthew Prince, CEO of
Cloudflare
Cloudflare, Inc. is an American content delivery network and DDoS mitigation company, founded in 2009. It primarily acts as a reverse proxy between a website's visitor and the Cloudflare customer's hosting provider. Its headquarters are in San ...
, initially defended his firm's technological support of 8chan on August 3, 2019, the day of the
El Paso shooting: "What happened in El Paso today is abhorrent in every possible way, and it's ugly, and I hate that there's any association between us and that ... For us the question is which is the worse evil?"
However, by the next day, August 4, with increasing press attention, Cloudflare changed its position, and rescinded its support for 8chan effective midnight August 5
Pacific Time
The Pacific Time Zone (PT) is a time zone encompassing parts of western Canada, the western United States, and western Mexico. Places in this zone observe standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−08:00). ...
, potentially leaving the site open for
denial of service
In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connect ...
attacks. Prince stated: "Unfortunately the action we take today won't fix hate online ... It will almost certainly not even remove 8chan from the Internet. But it is the right thing to do."
The Cloudflare Blog wrote:
Brennan, the creator of 8chan who ceased being the owner in 2015 and ceased working for the website in 2018, stated on August 4, 2019, that 8chan should be shut down,
and subsequently thanked Cloudflare for its decision to pull support for 8chan.
Tucows
Tucows Inc. is an American-Canadian publicly traded Internet services and telecommunications company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and incorporated in Pennsylvania, United States. The company is composed of three independent busines ...
also terminated its support as 8chan's
domain name registrar, making the site difficult to access. In the wake of Cloudflare and Tucows' changes, 8chan switched its domain register to
BitMitigate, a division of Epik, a provider that had previously serviced far-right sites like
Gab and ''
The Daily Stormer
''The Daily Stormer'' is an American far-right, neo-Nazi, white supremacist, misogynist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, and Holocaust denial commentary and message board website that advocates for a second genocide of Jews. It is part of the al ...
''. After 8chan moved to Epik, the company's CEO
Rob Monster
Robert W. Monster (born 1966 or 1967) is a Dutch-American technology executive and the founder and chief executive officer of Epik, a domain registrar and web host known for providing services to websites that host far-right, neo-Nazi, and ex ...
wrote: "Freedom of speech and expression are fundamental rights in a free society. We enter into a slippery slope when we start to limit speech that makes us uncomfortable." However, Voxility, the company that provided BitMitigate and Epik with its own servers and Internet connectivity, then took steps to stop leasing servers to BitMitigate, taking that site offline, and stated that the intended use of their servers violated their acceptable use policy.
Monster changed his decision to provide content hosting to 8chan soon after the company's removal from Voxility, citing concerns that 8chan did not have the ability to adequately moderate content. However, ''
Ars Technica'' noted that the company had begun providing 8chan with
DNS
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...
services.
Although the website was unreachable through its usual domain on the clearnet, users continued to access the site through its
IP address
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
and via its
.onion
.onion is a special-use top level domain name designating an anonymous onion service, which was formerly known as a "hidden service", reachable via the Tor network. Such addresses are not actual DNS names, and the .onion TLD is not in the I ...
address on the
Tor
Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to:
Places
* Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain
* Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city
* Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano
* Tor Bay, Devon, England
* Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia
Sc ...
hidden services
darknet
A dark net or darknet is an overlay network within the Internet that can only be accessed with specific software, configurations, or authorization, and often uses a unique customized communication protocol. Two typical darknet types are social ne ...
. Security researcher and terrorism analyst
Rita Katz
Rita may refer to:
People
* Rita (given name)
* Rita (Indian singer) (born 1984)
* Rita (Israeli singer) (born 1962)
* Rita (Japanese singer)
* Eliza Humphreys (1850–1938), wrote under the pseudonym Rita
Places
* Djarrit, also known as Rita, ...
noted that a site claiming to be 8chan had also appeared on
ZeroNet
ZeroNet is a decentralized web-like network of peer-to-peer users, created by Tamas Kocsis in 2015, programming for the network was based in Budapest, Hungary; is built in Python; and is fully open source. Instead of having an IP address, site ...
, another darkweb network, although an 8chan administrator tweeted that their team was not the one running the site.
On August 6, 2019, the
United States House Committee on Homeland Security
The U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. Its responsibilities include U.S. security legislation and oversight of the Department of Homeland Security.
Role of the commit ...
called 8chan's owner, Jim Watkins, an American living in the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, to testify about the website's efforts to tackle "the proliferation of extremist content, including white supremacist content". On August 11, 2019, Watkins uploaded a YouTube video saying that 8chan had been offline "voluntarily", and that it would go back online after he spoke with the Homeland Security Committee. In early September, Watkins traveled to
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
for congressional questioning. In an interview with ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', Watkins said that 8chan staff were building protections against cyberattacks to replace Cloudflare's services, and that the website could come back online as early as mid-September.
Rebrand to 8kun and return to clearnet
On October 7, 2019, 8chan's official Twitter account and Jim Watkins' YouTube channel released a video that unveiled a new "8kun" logo.
In it, a snake (which resembles that of the
Gadsden flag
The Gadsden flag is a historical American flag with a yellow field depicting a timber rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike. Beneath the rattlesnake are the words: " TREAD ON ME". Some modern versions of the flag include an apostrophe.
The f ...
) forms a shape of number 8 on top of the logo.
The "8chan" name was based on the '-chan' suffix (shortened from 'channel') used by the imageboards that employ the
2channel-like format, but it was suggested that the new name is a
wordplay
Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, phon ...
based on
Japanese honorifics
The Japanese language makes use of a system of honorific speech, called , which includes honorific suffixes and prefixes when referring to others in a conversation. Suffixes are often gender-specific at the end of names, while prefixes are att ...
; in that case, '-chan' can be interpreted as the one generally used for young children, especially females, while '-kun' suffix is used for younger males in general, or sometimes subordinates in the workplace.
On October 9, 2019, 8chan's official Twitter account posted a notification that instructed board owners who wish to migrate to 8kun to send their "shared secrets" (a tool that enables board owner to recover an 8chan board) to an email address at 8kun.net.
Brennan has vocally opposed 8chan's relaunch as 8kun, claiming the effort will not change the reputation previously associated with 8chan, and also citing his troubled relationship with 8chan administrators.
Brennan has also suggested that the success of 8kun will depend on the return of
"Q" and its followers.
The new 8kun domain was registered with Tucows on September 7, 2019, but a spokesperson from Tucows stated that the company was unaware of the situation until the news about 8kun broke out, and that it was looking into the matter.
8kun was set to launch by October 17, 2019, however the attempt failed as British server provider Zare discontinued support. A spokesperson for Zare claimed in a statement to ''
Vice
A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character t ...
'' that the team behind 8kun may have provided false details while registering themselves.
On October 22, Watkins packed 8chan's servers into a van and transported them to an unknown location.
This was later revealed to be in preparation for a move to the network VanwaTech, owned by
Nicholas Lim, the founder of
BitMitigate.
On November 5, 8chan came briefly back online as 8kun by using a
bogon IP through Media Land LLC. Media Land LLC is owned by the Russian Alexander "Yalishanda" Volosovyk, who has been described as the "world's biggest 'bulletproof' hosting operator" and is known for enabling cybercriminal activity.
8kun's trouble getting back online continued in the subsequent weeks, with Ron Watkins telling ''
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' "8chan is on indefinite hiatus" on November 16. 8kun moved to a
.top
.top is a generic top-level domain, officially delegated in ICANN's New gTLD Program on August 4, 2014.
The domain name extension .top is managed and operated by the .top registry (registry backend ZDNS) which belongs to Jiangsu Bangning Scien ...
domain on November 16, after the Tucows domain registrar stopped providing services earlier in the month. CNServers, which indirectly provided DDoS protection to VanwaTech via Spartan Host, cut ties in October 2020, taking 8kun briefly offline as a result. VanwaTech subsequently moved to
DDoS-Guard
DDoS-Guard is a Russian Internet infrastructure company which provides DDoS protection and web hosting services. Researchers and journalists have alleged that many of DDoS-Guard's clients are engaged in criminal activity, and investigative repor ...
, a Russian-owned service provider registered in Scotland.
Usage in planning the storming of the U.S. Capitol
8kun, which is one of the primary platforms used by followers of QAnon and those on the far-right, was used by rioters to plan the
January 6, 2021 storming of the United States Capitol. Some posts on the message board discussed which politicians the posters would kill once they entered the building,
and some suggested killing police, security guards, and federal employees.
After receiving questions from ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' following the attack, the cyberattack protection company DDoS-Guard terminated its service to 8kun's hosting provider, VanwaTech. Speaking to ''The Guardian'', one of DDoS-Guard's owners explained that the company had been providing their services to VanwaTech, not to 8kun directly, but that they "were not related to any political issues and don't want to be associated in any sense with customers hosting such toxic sites like QAnon/8chan".
Cyberattack protection services were restored to 8kun when VanwaTech began using the American company FiberHub.
On August 27, 2021, the
U.S. House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
select committee investigating the storming of the Capitol demanded records from 8kun (alongside 14 other social media companies) going back to the spring of 2020.
Controversies
Numerous controversies related to content posted on 8chan have arisen, to the extent that participation by individuals or companies in the website can itself cause controversy. On February 25, 2019,
THQ Nordic
THQ Nordic GmbH (formerly Nordic Games GmbH) is an Austrian video game publisher based in Vienna. Formed in 2011, it is a publishing subsidiary of Embracer Group. Originally named Nordic Games, as was the parent company, both companies were re ...
hosted an AMA (ask me anything) thread on the video games board of the website, /v/,
for which it later apologized.
Gamergate
On September 18, 2014, 8chan became entangled in the
Gamergate
Gamergate may refer to:
* Gamergate (ant), a worker ant that can store sperm and reproduce sexually
* Gamergate (harassment campaign), targeting women in the video game industry
* Lt. Gamergate, a character in the ''Adventure Time'' episode " Den ...
harassment campaign after 4chan banned discussion of Gamergate,
whereupon 8chan became one of several hubs for Gamergate activity.
The site was little-known prior to the controversy. 8chan's initial Gamergate-oriented board also gained attention after being compromised by members of the internet troll group
Gay Nigger Association of America
The Gay Nigger Association of America (GNAA) was an Internet trolling group. They targeted several prominent websites and Internet personalities including ''Slashdot'', Wikipedia, CNN, Barack Obama, Alex Jones, and prominent members of the ...
, forcing Gamergate activists to migrate to "/gamergate/". This replacement quickly became the site's second-most accessed board.
Swatting incidents and violent threats
In January 2015, the site was used as a base for
swatting exploits in
Portland
Portland most commonly refers to:
* Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States
* Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
,
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
, and
Burnaby, British Columbia
Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard ...
, most of them tied to the victims' criticism of Gamergate and 8chan's association with it;
the attacks were coordinated on a
board on the website called "/baphomet/".
One of the victims of a swatting attack said that she was singled out because she had followed someone on
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
.
On February 9, 2015, content on the "/baphomet/" subboard was wiped after
personal information
Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person.
The abbreviation PII is widely accepted in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates ha ...
of
Katherine Forrest, the presiding judge in the
Silk Road
The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...
case, had been posted there.
In 2019, a post threatening a mass shooting against
Bethel Park High School
Bethel Park High School, also called BPHS, is a four-year, comprehensive high school located in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, with an enrollment of 1,391 students in grades 9–12 for the 2018–2019 school year. Its curri ...
was posted on 8chan; as a result, an 18-year-old individual was arrested and charged with one count of terroristic threats and one count of retaliation against a witness or victim.
Child pornography
Boards have been created to discuss topics such as
child rape
Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child (whethe ...
. While the sharing of illegal content is against site rules, ''
The Daily Dot
''The Daily Dot'' is a digital media company covering the culture of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Founded by Nicholas White in 2011, ''The Daily Dot'' is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
The site, conceived as the Internet's "hometo ...
'' wrote that boards do exist to share sexualized images of minors in provocative poses, and that some users of those boards do post links to explicit child pornography hosted elsewhere.
When asked whether such boards were an inevitable result of free speech, Brennan responded: "Unfortunately, yes. I don’t support the content on the boards you mentioned, but it is simply the cost of free speech and being the only active site to not impose more 'laws' than those that were passed in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
"
In August 2015, 8chan was blacklisted from
Google Search
Google Search (also known simply as Google) is a search engine provided by Google. Handling more than 3.5 billion searches per day, it has a 92% share of the global search engine market. It is also the most-visited website in the world.
The ...
for what Google described as content constituting "suspected child abuse content".
Donald Trump presidential campaign
In July 2016, U.S. presidential candidate
Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...
tweeted an image of
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
with a background of money and a six-pointed star which resembled the
Star of David
The Star of David (). is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles.
A derivation of the ''seal of Solomon'', which was used for decorative ...
, containing the message "Most corrupt candidate ever". The image had been posted to 8chan's /pol/ board as early as June 22, over a week before Trump's team tweeted it. A watermark on the image led to a Twitter account which had published many other overtly racist and antisemitic images.
QAnon
8chan is the home of the discredited far-right
QAnon conspiracy theory
QAnon ( , ) is an American political conspiracy theory and political movement. It originated in the American far-right political sphere in 2017. QAnon centers on fabricated claims made by an anonymous individual or individuals known as "Q". T ...
.
In October 2017, a
4chan user that referred to himself as "Q" started gaining attention by promoting conspiracy theories about the
deep state.
The next month, citing security concerns, Q moved to 8chan and only posted there from then on, eventually leading to an international movement.
Sean Hannity
Sean Patrick Hannity (born December 30, 1961) is an American talk show host, conservative political commentator, and author. He is the host of '' The Sean Hannity Show'', a nationally syndicated talk radio show, and has also hosted a commen ...
has retweeted QAnon hashtags on his Twitter feed. On March 14, 2018, the initial group of Q followers on Reddit were banned over their promotion of the theory. They quickly regrouped into a new subreddit, which featured posts from Q and other anonymous posters on 8chan in a more reader-friendly format. The subreddit was banned
for a second time on September 12, 2018. With a flood of new users on the board, Q asked one of the website's owners, Ron Watkins, to upgrade the website's servers in order to accommodate all of the board's website traffic on September 19, 2018.
The movement has been linked with the
Pizzagate conspiracy theory
"Pizzagate" is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle. It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington, D.C. police.
In March 2016, the pe ...
. The Q movement has also been linked to the hashtags #TheGreatAwakening and #WWG1WGA, which stands for "where we go one, we go all"; it's also sometimes linked with the phrase "Follow the White Rabbit".
Louisiana Police's antifa list
In September 2018, the
Louisiana State Police
The Louisiana State Police (French: Police d’Etat de Louisiane) is the state police agency of Louisiana, which has jurisdiction anywhere in the state, headquartered in Baton Rouge. It falls under the authority of the Louisiana Department of P ...
were scrutinized for using a
hoax
A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...
list of personal information about supposed
antifa activists originally posted on 8chan's politics board. The document, dubbed "full list of antifa.docx" by police officers, actually contained the names of several thousand people who signed online petitions against then-President Donald Trump. The State Police has refused to disclose the list, claiming it would "compromise" ongoing criminal investigations in which it expects arrests. A lawsuit against Louisiana State Police was filed on behalf of the record requester by Harvard lecturer and former public defender Thomas Frampton, alleging that the Police's refusal to release the list indicates that it actually believed the credibility of the hoax list and used it in investigations and litigations.
2019 shootings
The perpetrators of three mass shootings, all in 2019, each used 8chan to spread their manifesto. As a result, there was increased pressure on those providing 8chan's Internet services to terminate their support,
which led to the services companies' withdrawal from providing CDN and domain registry,
taking the website off the clearnet.
Christchurch mosque shootings
Prior to attacks on two mosques in
Christchurch
Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...
, New Zealand, on March 15, 2019, the perpetrator, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, posted links to what was ultimately a 17-minute
Facebook Live
Facebook is a social-network service website launched on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. The following is a list of software and technology features that can be found on the Facebook website and mobile app and are available to users of t ...
video of the first attack on
Al Noor Mosque and his
white nationalist
White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara. ''Hate Crimes''. Greenwoo ...
,
neo-fascist
Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration s ...
manifesto ''The Great Replacement'' (named after
the French far-right conspiracy theory of the same name by writer
Renaud Camus
Renaud Camus (; ; born Jean Renaud Gabriel Camus on 10 August 1946) is a French novelist, conspiracy theorist and white nationalist writer. He is the inventor of the " Great Replacement", a far-right conspiracy theory that claims that a "glob ...
) detailing his
anti-Islamic and
anti-immigration
Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory ...
reasons for the attack. The shootings overall left 51 dead and 40 more injured. Some members of 8chan re-shared it and applauded the attacks.
On March 20, 2019, Australian telecom companies
Telstra
Telstra Group Limited is an Australian telecommunications company that builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access, pay television and other products and services. It is a member of the S&P/ASX 20 ...
,
Optus
Singtel Optus Pty Limited (commonly referred to as Optus) is an Australian telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singaporean telecommunications company Singte ...
, and
Vodafone
Vodafone Group plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
, Vod ...
denied millions of Australians access to the websites
4chan, 8chan,
Zero Hedge
0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by multiplying digits to the left of 0 by the radix, usuall ...
, and
LiveLeak as a reaction to the Christchurch mosque shootings.
New Zealand ISPs
Spark
Spark commonly refers to:
* Spark (fire), a small glowing particle or ember
* Electric spark, a form of electrical discharge
Spark may also refer to:
Places
* Spark Point, a rocky point in the South Shetland Islands
People
* Spark (surname)
* ...
,
Vodafone
Vodafone Group plc () is a British multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates services in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania.
, Vod ...
, and
2degrees
2degrees is a New Zealand telecommunications provider. Its mobile network launched on 4 August 2009 after nine years of planning. 2degrees offers prepaid and pay-monthly mobile services as well as fixed-line phone and broadband services. 2degree ...
, with a near monopoly of the broadband and mobile market share in New Zealand, also followed suit in blocking 4chan, 8chan, Zero Hedge, and LiveLeak for a number of weeks following the shootings, blocking 8chan and other similar websites at a DNS level in an attempt to prevent the proliferation of widely accessible content that was classified as objectionable by the
Chief Censor of New Zealand
Censorship in New Zealand has been present since around 1850 and is currently managed by the Classification Office under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993.
Over the years, New Zealand has gone through many iterations o ...
.
Poway synagogue shooting
John T. Earnest, the alleged perpetrator of a shooting at a synagogue in
Poway, California, on April 27, 2019, and an
earlier arson attack at a mosque in nearby
Escondido on March 25, had posted links to his
open letter
An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience, or a letter intended for an individual, but that is nonetheless widely distributed intentionally.
Open letters usually take the form of a letter addressed to an indiv ...
and his attempted livestream on 8chan, which Earnest also named as a place of radicalization for him. According to 8chan's Twitter, the shooter's post was removed nine minutes after its creation.
El Paso shooting
Patrick Crusius, the suspect in a mass shooting at a
Walmart
Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...
store in
El Paso, Texas
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the county seat, seat of El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau w ...
, on August 3, 2019, allegedly posted a four-page
white nationalist
White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara. ''Hate Crimes''. Greenwoo ...
manifesto ''The Inconvenient Truth'' on 8chan less than an hour before the shooting began. 8chan moderators quickly removed the original post, though users continued to circulate links to this manifesto.
See also
*
List of social networking websites
A social networking service is an online platform that people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections.
This is a li ...
*
DLive
DLive is an American video live streaming service which was founded in 2017. It was purchased by BitTorrent in 2019. Due to the site's lax enforcement of prohibited content guidelines, DLive has become a popular alternative to YouTube and Twit ...
*
Gab (social network)
Gab is an American alt-tech microblogging and social networking service known for its far-right userbase. Widely described as a haven for neo-Nazis, racists, white supremacists, white nationalists, antisemites, the alt-right, supporters of ...
*
Minds (social network)
Minds is a blockchain-based social network. Users can earn money or cryptocurrency for using Minds, and tokens can be used to boost their posts or crowdfund other users. Minds has been described as more privacy-focused than mainstream social m ...
*
Parler
Parler () is an American alt-tech social networking service associated with conservatives. Journalists have described Parler as an alt-tech alternative to Twitter, and users include those banned from mainstream social networks or who oppose ...
*
Voat
Voat Inc was an American alt-tech news aggregator and social networking service where registered community members could submit content such as text posts and direct links. Registered users could then vote on these submissions. Content entries ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:8chan
2channel
Alt-right Internet forums
American photography websites
Child pornography websites
Web software
Imageboards
Internet properties established in 2013
Internet trolling
Neo-Nazi websites
Online obscenity controversies
Tor onion services
Websites with far-right material
QAnon