8chan Owner Called to Testify After Mass Shootings – Should 8Chan Be Shut Down?

Update - August 7, 2019:

• Bipartisan leaders of the House Homeland Security Committee have called on the owner of 8chan to testify after the online forum was linked to the mass shooting in El Paso that killed 22 people.

• 8chan has been run out of the Philippines by Jim Watkins, a U.S. Army veteran, since 2015. He has resisted any calls to moderate or shut down the site. On Sunday, a banner at the top of 8chan read: “Welcome to 8chan, the Darkest Reaches of the Internet.”
• Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Mike Rogers (R-AL) summoned Watkins to testify about 8Chan's efforts to address “the proliferation of extremist content, including white supremacist content.” They note that the El Paso shooting was “at least the third act of supremacist violence linked to your website this year.”

“Americans deserve to know what, if anything, you, as the owner and operator, are doing to address the proliferation of extremist content on 8chan,” the letter said.

• Watkins responded to the letter on Twitter, offering to talk over the phone. “Rest assured I am not an extremist. My telephone should work worldwide,” he said.

Countable's original story appears below.

What’s the story?

• The suspected gunman in the El Paso mass shooting apparently posted a racist manifesto on anonymous chat server 8chan shortly before his attack.
• The 2,300-word screed announced that “this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” detailed a secret plan to separate America into territories by race, and warned that white people were being replaced by foreigners.
• At least three mass shootings this year have been announced in advance on the site: the online message board was the go-to destination of the perpetrators behind March’s Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand and April’s San Diego synagogue attack.
• 8chan briefly shut down Sunday evening after CloudFare – its cybersecurity provider - cut ties with the site.
• The alleged El Paso shooter “appears to have been inspired” by discussions on 8chan, said Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince.

 “8chan has repeatedly proven itself to be a cesspool of hate. They have proven themselves to be lawless and that lawlessness has caused multiple tragic deaths,” Prince said.

Free speech issue? American violence issue?

• 8chan has been run out of the Philippines by Jim Watkins, a U.S. Army veteran, since 2015. He has resisted any calls to moderate or shut down the site. On Sunday, a banner at the top of 8chan read: “Welcome to 8chan, the Darkest Reaches of the Internet.”
• Buzzfeed, meanwhile, ran an article headlined “The Problem Isn't 8chan. It's Americans.”

“Shutting down the site is unlikely to eradicate this new extremist culture, because 8chan is anywhere,” Ryan Broderick wrote.

• “If 8chan is shut down here is what will happen: someone else will spin up a new image board, say 20chan or whatever. People will flock to that,” Andrew Torba, the founder of Gab.ai, a far-right social media network, told BuzzFeed News. “Or someone will create an 8chan telegram channel. Or an 8chan Gab group. Or an 8chan Gab social server hosted by someone else. Or they will go back to 4chan.”
• Fredrick Brennan, the original creator of 8chan, said he started the platform as a free speech utopia, but is now concerned about what it’s become.

“Shutting it down, having these chan sites pushed underground, it wouldn’t totally stop these kinds of things from happening,” Brennan said. “But it wouldn’t happen every few months.”

What do you think?

Should platforms like 8chan be shut down? When does free speech end and “fighting words” begin? Take action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.

—Josh Herman