8Chan founder calls for shutdown of website linked to mass shootings

San Francisco: In the past six months, three acts of white supremacist terror have been linked to a single website. 8Chan, also called Infinitychan, has hosted manifestos by the gunmen in the Christchurch mosque, San Diego synagogue and, allegedly, El Paso attacks.

But how did a message board originally founded to discuss video games and Japanese animation become a nexus for neo-Nazi terrorism?

Fredrick Brennan regrets creating the forum 8Chan, which has spread racial hatred. Credit: Al Jazeera

8Chan was founded in 2013 by Fredrick Brennan, an American programmer with brittle bone syndrome who went by the online handle "Hotwheels" (a reference to his wheelchair), during what he described as a "psychedelic mushroom trip".

A spinoff of 4chan, the better-known message board, the forum's hardline free-speech ethos, anarchic culture and focus on anonymity quickly made it a home for online harassment campaigns, paedophile communities and, before long, white supremacists.

Since then the site has been a wellspring for extreme political movements. It played a key role in spreading the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which falsely accused leading US politicians of being part of a paedophile ring and went viral during the 2016 presidential election campaign.

It was also the hub of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which posits that the American political elite will soon be swept away in a US military purge. Believers in the theory are a common sight at Donald Trump rallies and even include some police officers.

8Chan has been the site of choice for a number of mass shooters.Credit:

More recently, 8Chan appears to have become a hub for terrorist propaganda. The Christchurch and San Diego shooters posted links on the site to live streams of their attacks, an echo of video game streaming culture. Experts believe the perpetrators were probably frequent users of the forum, and their acts were praised and glorified by many other users.

That suggests that they were not "lone wolves", but rather the product of deliberate encouragement and radicalisation.

In the wake of the Christchurch attack, 8Chan was blocked by internet providers in Australia and New Zealand. There is now similar pressure to act on Cloudflare, a web security firm that protects 8Chan from cyberattacks. Cloudflare contends that keeping 8Chan online makes it easier for governments to monitor the site.

Brennan has cut all ties with the site and expressed regret for its consequences. When the news of a mass shooting in El Paso arrived his response was immediate and instinctive.

"Whenever I hear about a mass shooting, I say, 'All right, we have to research if there's an 8chan connection,'" he said.

"Shut the site down," Brennan said in an interview Sunday. "It's not doing the world any good. It's a complete negative to everybody except the users that are there. And you know what? It's a negative to them, too. They just don't realise it."

So far this year, three mass shootings — El Paso, the mosque killings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the synagogue shooting in Poway, California — have been announced in advance on 8chan, often accompanied by racist writings that seem engineered to go viral on the internet.

Moments before the El Paso shooting Saturday, a four-page message whose author identified himself as the suspected shooter appeared on 8chan's politics board, known as /pol/. The person who posted the message encouraged his 8chan "brothers" to spread its contents far and wide.

Given its repeated involvement in mass shootings, 8chan has become a focal point for those seeking to disrupt the pathways of online extremism.

"8chan is almost like a bulletin board where the worst offenders go to share their terrible ideas," said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. "It's become a sounding board where people share ideas, and where these kinds of ideologies are amplified and expanded on, and ultimately, people are radicalised as a result."

8chan has been run out of the Philippines by Jim Watkins, a US Army veteran, since 2015, when Brennan gave up control of the site.

The site remains nearly completely unmoderated, and its commitment to keeping up even the most violent speech has made it a venue for extremists to test out ideas, share violent literature and cheer on the perpetrators of mass killings. Users on 8chan frequently lionise mass shooters using jokey internet vernacular, referring to their body counts as "high scores" and creating memes praising the killers.

Brennan has tried to distance himself from 8chan and its current owners. In a March interview with The Wall Street Journal, he expressed his regrets over his role in the site's creation, and warned that the violent culture that had taken root on 8chan's boards could lead to more mass shootings.

After the El Paso shooting, he seemed resigned to the fact that it had.

"Another 8chan shooting?" he tweeted Saturday. "Am I ever going to be able to move on with my life?"

Watkins, who runs 8chan along with his son, Ronald, has remained defiant in the face of criticism, and has resisted calls to moderate or shut down the site. On Sunday, a banner at the top of 8chan's home page read, "Welcome to 8chan, the Darkest Reaches of the Internet."

"I've tried to understand so many times why he keeps it going, and I just don't get it," Brennan said. "After Christchurch, after the Tree of Life shooting, and now after this shooting, they think this is all really funny."

Watkins did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

In the early days of 8chan, Brennan defended the right of 8chan users to post anonymously, without censorship. And he dismissed incidents of harassment or violence by users of the site as the price of being an open forum.

"Anonymity should not be taken away from everyone just because of a few bad apples," he told Ars Technica, the technology website, in a 2015 interview.

But more recently, Brennan, who has begun attending a Baptist church, has tried to persuade Watkins to shut down the site. He and Watkins live near each other in the Philippines, he said, and he often drives past Watkins's house on his way to church.

Brennan said that other websites, like Facebook and Twitter, also play a role in spreading the kinds of violent messages that often originate on 8chan. But he said that those sites have been more proactive about removing dangerous content, making them less appealing venues for a would-be terrorist.

"Shutting it down, having these chan sites pushed underground, it wouldn't totally stop these kinds of things from happening," he said. "But it wouldn't happen every few months."

Brennan said he doubted that Watkins makes money from 8chan, since it is free to use and costly to maintain, and since its toxic content has made it radioactive to advertisers. (In a 2017 interview, Watkins said of running 8chan, "It doesn't make money, but it's a lot of fun.") And Brennan is hopeful that sustained pressure on Watkins and his son will get them to change their minds eventually, and take down 8chan for good.

"How long are they just going to allow this to go on?" he asked.

Telegraph (London), The New York Times