Internet security service provider Cloudflare is refusing to provide cyber protection to 8chan after the controversial online forum was used by the suspected gunman in one of the latest deadly shooting sprees in the US.
The almost entirely unregulated platform has become infamous for hosting posts and manifestos linked to “horrific mass shootings” around the world, Wired reports. Now, 8chan is back in the spotlight following a mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday that left 20 people dead and dozens more wounded.
The alleged gunman is believed to have posted his so-called “manifesto” on the site 20 minutes before the shooting. The post contained references to what the killer described as the “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and the so-called “Great Replacement” - a white supremacist conspiracy theory that “white people will be systematically replaced by black and brown migrants”, says The Guardian’s Rosa Schwartzburg.
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On Monday, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince wrote in a blog post that his company would no longer provide services to 8chan, calling it a “lawless” platform that “has caused multiple tragic deaths”.
“Even if 8chan may not have violated the letter of the law in refusing to moderate their hate-filled community, they have created an environment that revels in violating its spirit,” he added.
However, Prince also warned that cutting off certain protections for the site will do little to stop the flow of hate speech on its boards.
So what happened?
Also known as Infinitechan or Infinitychan, 8chan was founded in 2013 by computer programmer and self-proclaimed eugenicist Fredrick Brennan in a bid to ensure total free speech online, The Guardian reports.
The following year, the popular 4chan message board took the unusual step of banning discussions on the Gamergate controversy, a highly charged online debate over sexism in video games. As a result, many free speech advocate and so-called “Gamergaters” relocated to the newly-formed 8chan, which had almost no restrictions on what could be posted.
Since then, 8chan has become a go-to resource and sounding board for far-right extremists, racist or violent content and even child pornography.
In recent months, the site has also gained widespread notoriety as the platform on which a number of mass murderers have posted their “manifestos” shortly before their killing sprees.
In March, the perpetrator of a shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 51 people dead posted his racist manifesto on the site. Weeks later, the suspect in a synagogue shooting in Poway, California, used 8chan to publish an anti-Semitic diatribe.
Claims that the 21-year-old suspect in this weekend’s shooting in Texas also used 8chan to spread his manifesto appears to be the last straw for Cloudflare.
What has Cloudflare done?
Cloudflare is a San Francisco-based internet services provider that offers protection against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on networks attached to the internet. A DDoS attack is an attempt to render a website unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources.
The firm has come under considerable scrutiny in the past for offering its DDoS protections to websites known to host extremist content, such as neo-Nazi news organisation The Daily Stormer.
“Company officials have said Cloudflare’s core belief is in the free and open nature of the internet,” investigative news site ProPublica reported in 2017.
However, in his blog post this week, Prince said: “We reluctantly tolerate content that we find reprehensible, but we draw the line at platforms that have demonstrated they directly inspire tragic events and are lawless by design. 8chan has crossed that line.
“It will therefore no longer be allowed to use our services.”
CNN says the announcement was an “about-face”, after Cloudflare told the news organisation on Sunday that it had “no plans to stop providing its services to 8chan”.
Prince insisted that he feels “incredibly uncomfortable about playing the role of content arbiter and do not plan to exercise it often”.
What next?
As of Monday morning, 8chan was offline. But the BBC reports that 8chan’s site administrator says the platform will moving to another security firm, Washington State-based BitMitigate, which also stepped in to help The Daily Stormer when it lost Cloudflare protection in 2017.
According to the broadcaster, the BitMitigate website says the company has “a proven commitment to liberty”.
Meanwhile, Cloudflare boss Prince has warned that the problems posed by 8chan are here to stay. “While removing 8chan from our network takes heat off of us, it does nothing to address why hateful sites fester online,” he said.
“It does nothing to address why mass shootings occur. It does nothing to address why portions of the population feel so disenchanted they turn to hate.
“In taking this action we’ve solved our own problem, but we haven’t solved the internet’s.”
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