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8chan

For the Robot 8-chan TV series, see Toei Fushigi Comedy Series.

8kun
A yellow brush-stroke styled 8 outlined in black, with "kun" underneath in white text outlined in black
Type of site
Imageboard
Available inEnglish (users can create language-specific boards)
Owner
Created byFredrick Brennan
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedOctober 22, 2013 (2013-10-22)
Current statusActive
Part of a series on
Antisemitism
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Category

8kun, previously called 8chan, Infinitechan or Infinitychan (stylized as ∞chan), is an imageboard website composed of user-created message boards. An owner moderates each board, with minimal interaction from site administration.[1] The site has been linked to white supremacism, neo-Nazism, the alt-right, racism and antisemitism, hate crimes, and multiple mass shootings.[2][3][4] The site has been known to host child pornography;[5][6] as a result, it was filtered out from Google Search in 2015.[7] Several of the site's boards played an active role in the Gamergate harassment campaign, encouraging Gamergate affiliates to frequent 8chan after 4chan banned the topic. 8chan is the home of the discredited QAnon conspiracy theory.[8][9][10]

Shortly before the 2019 El Paso shooting, a four-page message justifying the attack was posted to the site, and police have stated that they are "reasonably confident" it was posted by the perpetrator.[3][11] In the aftermath of the back-to-back mass shootings on August 3 in El Paso and August 4 in Dayton, Ohio, respectively, the site was taken off clearnet on August 5, 2019, when network infrastructure provider Cloudflare stopped providing their content delivery network (CDN) service. Voxility, a web services company that had been renting servers to Epik, the site's new domain registrar, as well as Epik's CDN provider subsidiary BitMitigate, also terminated service.[12][13] After several attempts to return to clearnet were ultimately stymied by providers denying service to 8chan, the site returned to the clearnet as 8kun in November 2019 through a Russian hosting provider.[14][15][16]

  1. ^ Brennan, Fredrick. "FAQ". null.net. Infinitechan. Retrieved November 23, 2014.[dead link]
  2. ^ Wong, Julia Carrie (August 4, 2019). "8chan: the far-right website linked to the rise in hate crimes". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on August 21, 2019. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  3. ^ a b Roose, Kevin (August 4, 2019). "8chan Is a Megaphone for Gunmen. 'Shut the Site Down,' Says Its Creator". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on August 5, 2019. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  4. ^ Mezzofiore, Gianluca; O'Sullivan, Donie (August 5, 2019). "El Paso shooting is at least the third atrocity linked to 8chan this year". CNN. Archived from the original on August 20, 2019. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Howell2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference WashPost was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference ars-8chancensor was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Sources:
  9. ^ Weill, Kelly (November 12, 2020). "QAnon's Home 8kun Is Imploding—and Q Has Gone Silent". The Daily Beast. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  10. ^ Thomas, Elise (February 17, 2020). "Qanon Deploys 'Information Warfare' to Influence the 2020 Election". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved January 21, 2021.
  11. ^ Collins, Ben (August 3, 2019). "Investigators 'reasonably confident' Texas suspect left anti-immigrant screed". NBC News. Archived from the original on August 7, 2019. Retrieved August 11, 2019.
  12. ^ Robertson, Adi (August 5, 2019). "8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service". The Verge. Archived from the original on August 8, 2019. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  13. ^ Harwell, Drew (August 5, 2019). "A defiant 8chan vowed to fight on, saying its 'heartbeat is strong.' Then a tech firm knocked it offline". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 6, 2019. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  14. ^ Conger, Kate (November 4, 2019). "It's Back: 8chan Returns Online". The New York Times. Retrieved November 5, 2019.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).