Three mass shootings this year began with a hateful screed on 8chan. Its founder calls it a terroris

[Eugene]

Source: Washington Post

Three mass shootings this year began with a hateful screed on 8chan. Its founder calls it a terrorist refuge in plain sight.

By Drew Harwell August 4 at 11:59 AM

The El Paso massacre began like the fatal attacks earlier this year at mosques in New Zealand and a San Diego-area synagogue: with a racist manifesto and announcement on the anonymous message board 8chan, one of the Web’s most venomous refuges for extremist hate.

Like after the shootings in Christchurch and the Chabad of Poway synagogue, the El Paso attack was celebrated on 8chan as well: One of the most active threads early Sunday urged people to create memes and original content, or OC, that could make it easier to distribute and “celebrate the [gunman’s] heroic action.”

“You know what to do!!! Make OC, Spread OC, Share OC, Inspire OC,” an anonymous poster wrote. “Make the world a better place.”

The message board’s ties to mass violence have fueled worries over how to combat a Web-fueled wave of racist bloodshed. The El Paso shooting also prompted the site’s founder to urge its owners to “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,” Fredrick Brennan, who founded 8chan in 2013 but stopped working with the site’s owners in December, told The Washington Post. “The board is a receptive audience for domestic terrorists.”

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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/04/three-mass-shootings-this-year-began-with-hateful-screed-chan-its-founder-calls-it-terrorist-refuge-plain-sight/

[dalton99a]

1. Duterte won't shut it down

Faysaleyyah Abdullah, from the Philippines National Defence Department, said there was a growing consensus that public-private partnerships were needed to address extremists' use of the forums to share disturbing content.

"We continue to monitor these websites [4chan and 8chan] but as to whether those websites are actually taken down, that is why we want to enhance legislation - it is currently being reviewed.

"But whether it has any results on the use of social media remains to be seen."