Notorious forum 8chan, which is associated with numerous mass shootings, is back with a new name called 8kun.
The site, a home for far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists, allows users to post anonymously and has famously hosted manifestos for Christchurch shooting in New Zealand, and El Paso shooting in the US. During the Christchurch shooting the terrorist live-streamed the incident on the site, and many community members praised his ‘efforts.’
After these incidents, The site’s founder, Fredrik Bennon repeatedly asked for 8chan’s ban. After El Paso shooting, cloud hosting services including Cloudflare and Epik banned the site.
In October, 8chan’s administrator and current owner, Jim Watkins, posted a new logo under the 8kun brand. Brennan has opposed the site’s return saying the admins are incompetent.
Prior to that, during his testimony before the US Congress in September, Watkins said the racist content is only posted by “a small minority of users” and that he “has no intention of deleting constitutionally protected hate speech.”
I don't want 8chan to come back.
Mostly for personal reasons.
I think its admins are terrible incompetent people. I have a vendetta with them.
I'm not against other imageboards, only ones they run with names like 8chan. Honest enough? https://t.co/zuhn4GXdY9
— Fredrick Brennan ???✝ (@HW_BEAT_THAT) October 7, 2019
The site has famously hosted QAnon, a conspiracy theorist, who has falsely accused several Hollywood stars and Democratic politicians of a child sex-trafficking scandal.
The new site doesn’t have the popular /pol/ (politics) board, where most political theories originate from (yet).
If 8chan was of any indication, 8kun will be no different in spreading hate speech and spewing propaganda. The site’s current host, a Russia-based company called VDSina, should look at its history and ban it before it causes any harm.
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