TORONTO – Notorious anonymous forum website 8chan, which was deplatformed in August due to links to the El Paso shooting, is back online after rebranding as 8kun.
The new site appears seemingly identical to the previous iteration, except for the notable absence of the /pol/ board, which was infamous for hosting some of the sites darkest content, including manifestos of mass shooters, neo-Nazi content and extremely graphic memes.
Jim Watkins, the current owner of 8chan/8kun, remained defiant in the face of mounting scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers about the extremist affiliations on his site, releasing videos on YouTube detailing the progress of getting the site back online and asking users to “hang together.”
In the summer, Watkins was subpoenaed by the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee to testify about the website’s role in mass shootings, including the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand and the Poway Synagogue shooting in California, where both perpetrators published materials on, or interacted with, the site prior to committing their attacks.
After the closed-door hearing, Watkins released a statement through his attorney laying out changes that would be implemented on the new site to combat “illegal” hate speech, however Watkins said that the company “has no intention of deleting constitutionally protected hate speech.”
On 8kun’s new site, a warning appears in the upper right hand corner, saying users who post “content that violates the laws of the United States of American will be deleted and the poster will be banned,” but it is not clear if and how any new moderation policies have been implemented.
Ron Watkins, one of 8kun’s site administrators and the son of Jim Watkins, posted on Twitter Saturday that the site was now live, but that he was unsure how they would be able to remain online due to “activists trying to deplatform us, and hackers preparing to ddos us.”
Watkins also told users that if the site goes down, they should still be able to access it using a Tor service, which allows for anonymous, encrypted and difficult to trace communication over a computer network, as there is a “hidden service” with access to the site on the “deepnet.”
Meanwhile, Fredrick Brennan, the original creator of 8chan but no longer affiliated with the site, is continuing his online campaign to have the site shut down.
Brennan has been warning 8kun users, via his Twitter account, that their data is being sent to a Russian ISP “known for hosting malware, phishing sites and ransomware.”
“Who knows what they will use your data for,” the Tweet from Monday reads, adding cryptically that user data “is most likely being scooped up by the FSB (modern KGB)!”
There are currently 63 public boards online on 8kun according to the site’s home page, with the site’s official Twitter account warning that “migration is still ongoing.”
