What is 8chan, and why did the New Zealand shooter use it to announce himself to the world?
Based on labyrinthine and anonymous comment threads, 8chan is one of the darkest corners of the Internet
A suspected shooter in the terror attacks in Christchurch’s livestreamed his rampage at the Al Noor Mosque on Facebook, but gave earlier warning of it via 8chan, a message board known as one of the Internet’s darkest corners.
“Well lads, it’s time to stop shitposting and time to make a real life effort post … by the time you read this I should be going live,” the 8chan post reads.
As the Washington Post’s Drew Harwell remarked on Twitter: “The New Zealand massacre was livestreamed on Facebook, announced on 8chan, reposted on YouTube, commentated about on Reddit, and mirrored around the world before the tech companies could even react.”
Based on labyrinthine and anonymous comment threads, 8chan was founded by Fredrick Brennan, a user of similar site 4chan, in the fall of 2013. It is now owned by American Jim Watkins, who is said to be based in the Philippines.
Unlike Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, where users who post hate speech are often banned, 4chan and — to an even more extreme degree — 8chan are very light on moderation.
8chan was spawned by #GamerGate, a long-running episode in which forums were frequently used to “dox” and harass female video game enthusiasts who were pushing back against sexism in their industry.
When sites like 4chan and Reddit belatedly clamped down on such hate-filled forums, Brennan began 8chan as a “free speech friendly 4chan alternative,” the Washington Post reported in 2015. The site became the second-biggest “imageboard” outlet, after 4chan.
These site types were originally used to discuss things like Japanese anime, but are now home to video game experts, Internet culture obsessives and the so-called alt-right. As 8chan grew more and more bilious, Brennan eventually partnered with computer expert Watkins after the site kept getting removed from funding sites such as Patreon for violating terms of use.
“Imageboards are a haven for (terrible things) … and that’s exactly what makes them such wonderful places. I wouldn’t change a thing,” Brennan said at the time.
“It (8chan) became the new digital home for some of the most offensive people on the internet, people who really believe in white supremacy and the inferiority of women,” Ethan Chiel wrote for Splinter News in 2016. 8chan was delisted from Google’s search results the previous year because users were posting child porn.
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/what-is-8chan-and-why-did-the-new-zealand-shooter-use-it-to-announce-himself-to-the-world