The founder of the notorious 8chan website called Sunday for it to be shut down amid suspicions that a gunman posted a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto minutes before the bloody rampage that killed 20 people in El Paso, Texas.
Fredrick Brennan told the Washington Post that the site’s owners should “do the world a favor and shut it off.”
“Once again, a terrorist used 8chan to spread his message as he knew people would save it and spread it,” Brennan said.
“The board is a receptive audience for domestic terrorists.”
Postings on 8chan, which functions as an anonymous, unmoderated message board, have previously been linked to mass killings in April at a synagogue in Poway, California, and in March at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The rant that preceded Saturday’s slaughter in El Paso said the attack was prompted the “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and said the writer was inspired by the Christchurch shootings.
It also urged readers, “Do your part and spread this brothers!”
Brennan founded 8chan in 2013 but stopped working with its owners in December, according to the Washington Post.
The site, which is registered to a Nevada-based company, N.T. Technology, is owned by Jim Watkins, an American Web entrepreneur living in the Philippines, and is run by his son, Ron, the paper said.
Jim Watkins responded to a request for comment with a single sentence that said, “I hope you are well,” according to the Washington Post.
In a video posted on YouTube following the Chirstchurch killings, Watkins said that “gruesome act of senseless violence” was “not the fault of NT Technology.”
He also said his company was “cooperating fully” with authorities and warned that “vicious trolls” who talk about copycat crimes “should take note that their speech is not protected by law or me.”
https://nypost.com/2019/08/04/el-paso-mass-shooting-leads-8chan-founder-to-call-for-sites-closure/