‘Shut the Site Down,’ Says the Creator of 8chan, a Megaphone for Gunmen", 04 Aug 2019

Moments before the El Paso shooting on Saturday, a four-page message whose author identified himself as the gunman appeared on 8chan. The person who posted the message encouraged his “brothers” on the site to spread the contents far and wide... In recent months, 8chan has become a go-to resource for violent extremists. At least three mass shootings this year — including the mosque killings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the synagogue shooting in California — have been announced in advance on the site...Mr. Brennan started the online message board as a free speech utopia. But now, 8chan is...a megaphone for mass shooters, and a recruiting platform for violent white nationalists... Cloudflare, a service that protects websites against cyberattacks, said it would stop working with 8chan on Sunday night and the site went dark...And Mr. Brennan, who stopped working with the site’s current owner last year, called for it to be taken offline before it leads to further violence... “Shut the site down,” Mr. Brennan said in an interview. “It’s not doing the world any good. It’s a complete negative to everybody except the users that are there. And you know what? It’s a negative to them, too. They just don’t realize it.”