Six years ago, Fredrick Brennan created the message board 8chan as a haven for free speech. Now, in the wake of Saturday’s shooting in El Paso, he wants the site shut down.
In interviews with The New York Times and The Washington Post Sunday, Brennan said that the site has become a haven for hate speech and domestic terrorism.
“It’s not doing the world any good,” Brennan told The New York Times. “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 realize it.”
Just prior to the massacre in El Paso, a post appeared on 8chan with a four-page message claiming to be from the shooter. Similar posts have been made in advance of the shootings at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand and a synagogue in Poway, California, with the suspect behind the Poway attack posting on 8chan before the shooting that “what I’ve learned here is priceless.”
8chan, which has little moderation and boasts freedom of speech, first became popular in 2014 after the rise of Gamergate. In a 2015 interview with Ars Technica, Brennan defended the site’s practices, saying that “anonymity should not be taken away from everyone just because of a few bad apples.”
But in March, Brennan parted ways with the site following the Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand and now says that he has tried to persuade Jim Watkins, a U.S. Army veteran who operates 8chan out of the Philippines, to shut the board down.
“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.”
Brennan says he hopes that sustained pressure on Watkins will lead him to shutdown the site, as it did when service provider Cloudflare shut down the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer after the 2017 Charlottesville riots. When asked for comment by The Washington Post, Watkins simply replied, “I hope you are well.”
5 Times Parkland Shooting Survivors Were Falsely Criticized (Photos)
As the high school students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida, have increasingly pushed for change around gun control -- most recently in the March for Our Lives events around the country -- they've become the victims of attacks and conspiracy theories by those who wish to discredit them and their cause. Some of the most vocal figureheads of the movement, David Hogg, 17, and Emma Gonzalez, 18, have largely been the targets of these critiques. These five claims have been debunked as false, but it hasn't stopped them from widely circulating on social media.
David Hogg is NOT a "crisis actor"
On Feb. 21, a video claiming that David Hogg was a "crisis actor" briefly became the No. 1 Trending video on YouTube. The video included an old clip of Hogg being interviewed by a Los Angeles CBS affiliate, and it was falsely used as evidence that Hogg did not attend Stoneman Douglas as a student but was an actor. YouTube pulled the video later that day, but not before it received over 200,000 views. A separate meme also claimed that Hogg had attended and graduated from a high school in southern California. And other right-wing writers even claimed that Hogg's media appearances were suspect because his father previously worked for the FBI. Hogg explicitly denied these conspiracy theories.
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David Hogg WAS on campus at the time of the shooting
An article by Sara Rumpf in RedState questioned whether Hogg was on campus during the shooting. Rumpf noted that Hogg's comments in a CBS documentary and his quotes from a Vox article contradicted each other and called into question whether he was actually on campus. Hogg was on campus during the shooting and then returned several hours later with a camera to interview students. Rumpf later recanted the original report and apologized, but conservative media host Erick Erickson had latched onto the original story and stood by his criticism calling Hogg "a bully."
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Emma Gonzalez did NOT tear up a copy of the Constitution
An animated GIF went viral showing Emma Gonzalez tearing up a copy of the U.S. Constitution. But the image, which was tweeted out by the Twitter feed "Gab" and later by actor Adam Baldwin, was doctored. The original image came from a video from a Teen Vogue photoshoot in which Gonzalez tears up a firing range target.
Teen Vogue Twitter
Emma Gonzalez did NOT "bully" the Parkland shooter
Two conservative blogs, LouderwithCrowder.com and The American Spectator, posted an abbreviated clip of Emma Gonzalez's remarks at a rally on Feb. 17, claiming that they were "a startling admission" that Gonzalez and others had bullied shooter Nikolas Cruz. "Those talking about how we should have not ostracized him? You didn’t know this kid! OK? We did," Gonzalez said. But in context, Gonzalez was referring to the fact that school officials were alerted to Cruz's behavior and mental instability. Another student, Isabelle Robinson, wrote a New York Times op-ed responding to the idea that students needed to be nicer to Cruz. "The idea that we are to blame, even implicitly, for the murders of our friends and teachers is a slap in the face to all Stoneman Douglas victims and survivors."
CNN
David Hogg did NOT give the Nazi salute
Following his speech at the March for Our Lives rally, an image circulated juxtaposing David Hogg with his arm and fist outstretched with an image of Hitler giving the Nazi salute. "All in favor of gun control, raise your right arm," the meme reads. Several on social media also drew the comparison, but video shows that Hogg extended his closed fist into the air rather than an open palm facing downward.
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Students David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez have been the subject of conspiracy theories, misinformation and doctored images
As the high school students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida, have increasingly pushed for change around gun control -- most recently in the March for Our Lives events around the country -- they've become the victims of attacks and conspiracy theories by those who wish to discredit them and their cause. Some of the most vocal figureheads of the movement, David Hogg, 17, and Emma Gonzalez, 18, have largely been the targets of these critiques. These five claims have been debunked as false, but it hasn't stopped them from widely circulating on social media.
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