Chan culture, or imageboard culture, is a wonderful thing sometimes. Chansites are a place where identity doesn’t matter, and where the social baggage of real life can be shed for an hour or two for the purposes of anything from serious, honest discussion to off topic silliness and humor. And for arguing, of course. Words on a chan have no power beyond the ideas they contain – no language is forbidden, no subject taboo. An old saying goes: “Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” On most chans, wearing a mask is the default setting a poster gets when he hits the “Submit” button. When a conversation is serious, truth is the currency of the day. They’re a nice place to stay if you can get over the initial culture shock, and realize that while the things you see might be disturbing on any other site they are hallmarks of the freedom of thought that exists on a chan. A freedom that is yours to share if you shed your name and stick around a while.
But even chans have their limits, for those who were wondering. Sparse though those limits are, there are a couple things prohibited on every chan in existence, and the most vile of those is the pornographic exploitation of children. Child porn. “CP.” Being a type of site that specializes in the sharing of images, and permitting (or sometimes even requiring) anonymous posting, the chans have fought a long battle against CP and the criminal element that produces and spreads it. There is no force in the universe that can prevent a poster from spamming CP on a chan, or in a Reddit sub, or even on Twitter by attaching the images to their tweets. An alert userbase and fast action by moderators are the tools of the trade when it comes to combating it. CP is reported and deleted on sight, and the persons responsible are reported to the authorities by the site administrators. This is the status quo for all websites that allow the posting of images, and thus now we come to 8chan.
[See below for updates to this section – Acid] At the time of this writing, 8chan.co‘s domain has been stolen by a company called InternetBS. Those who follow this blog are aware that 8chan, as one of the key hubs of the GamerGate rebellion’s coordination network, has been under attack by forces opposed to GamerGate for several days. Early on Monday, Jan. 12th, this attack escalated into a combination of a sustained Denial of Service hacker attack, and the filing of multiple false reports of “hosting child pornography” against the site’s account with the hosting service at CloudFlare, chiefly from fake email addresses.
Overwhelmed by the report spam, InternetBS temporarily closed 8chan’s hosting, which allowed the domain name – “8chan.co” to be placed on hold. With the name now controlled by a third party, even when 8chan successfully clears up the false CP allegations, the domain name of the site may remain lost.
The emails alleging the CP all pointed to the same source as evidence: A medium.com article written by Dan Olson. Olson himself is among the most outspoken of GamerGate’s opponents, dedicating part of his “Foldable Human” Youtube video series to speaking out against them, and a person who isn’t shy about sharing his disdain for GamerGate on Twitter:
The timing of Olson’s article coincided with a successful push by GamerGate’s opponents to have 8chan’s administrator Fredrick Brennan, known by his handle “Hotwheels”, removed from the Patreon.com donation service, the money from which was used to pay for 8chan’s operating expenses. The userbase of 8chan fairly concluded that the timing of Olson’s article was not coincidental – forcing GamerGate off of 8chan had been a long-established goal of its opposition, with Olson admitting his own interest in the same shortly after his article was published:
GamerGate activists then drew a reasonable conclusion from this turn of events: In the article Olson wrote were several blurred-out photos (not to be reprinted here) that he claimed were the offending material. In order for him to blur such images and post them in his article, he himself must have been in possession of them, regardless of the source. Following this realization, several GamerGate activists reported Dan Olson himself, a Toronto resident, to Canadian authorities with an accusation that if the CP were real then he was in subsequent violation of the law for possessing and sharing it.
Of course, GamerGate suspected that the purported images were not real. Like any other site on the ‘net, 8chan has an absolute prohibition against CP and its userbase is keenly aware of it. In fact, 8chan took pride in being well above average in speed of detection and elimination of such content, boasting a reaction time 48 times faster than the authorities. The point of reporting Olson to the authorities was to force an admission that the blurred content he purported to be CP was, in fact, perfectly legal and not child pornography at all. This ruse was successful (click the image below for full size):
However this was not to be the end of the troubles, as the article remained in place on medium.com without correction or retraction – another example of the very type of biased and shoddy journalism that GamerGate stands against – and was on Jan. 12th used as fuel by GamerGate’s opposition to bring about the theft of the 8chan.co domain.
It is difficult to imagine the mind that is so afraid of free speech and political incorrectness that it would reach to such depths to silence those with whom it disagrees. Yet such minds not only exist, but have taken root within both gaming and mainstream journalism in order that they might press the same chains that bind their own thoughts and free will on to others, using the power of the pen and the driving force of a media lie. Indeed, beginning with the gaming media that were GamerGate’s original targets, the media as a whole has gone to great lengths to build a narrative against GamerGate, using every imaginable measure of chicanery and spin. They have blamed it for harassment, for threats, and now for child pornography all without proof. And indeed, even when proof is provided contrary to the accusations made against GamerGate, the media fights tooth and nail to see the narrative prevail and the forces of censorship gain ground.
Fortunately for the site’s normal userbase 8chan will continue to exist, though for the moment under the Japanese hostname of 8ch.net. And fortunately for all of us GamerGate continues to exist as well, perhaps even more angry and certainly even more determined than before.
UPDATE:
As of the following afternoon, Tuesday Jan. 13th, control of the 8chan.co domain name has been returned to its rightful owner in reaction to public outcry by GamerGate and 8chan users. For the moment, 8chan.co now exists as a redirect link to 8ch.net, until Mr. Brennan finds a more trustworthy domain registrar. The CP allegations have again been confirmed as unfounded.
A quick peek around GamerGate’s opposition shows considerable disappointment in this turn of events, apparently despite the lack of evidence against the site or its owner. Indeed, several voices in the crowd appear to allude credit to themselves for the email spam that resulted in the domain seizure, with many more who were stopped short in their gloating including the Reddit handle of none other than Dan Olson himself – “Foldablehuman” as he explains why he didn’t report his supposed “CP” for deletion instead of saving it to his computer.
Additionally and unsurprisingly Ars Technica, who were one of GamerGate’s original targets over their corrupt and deceitful media practices, were the first to release a gloating article merely hours after the domain seizure. The speed at which the article was published evinces their vested interest in the matter, and it stands to imagine that they’re probably now enjoying plenty of salt with their breakfast of crow.
And last but not least, the anti-GamerGate sub-forum at Reddit.com is also discussing the tools with which to launch DDoS attacks against websites – a suspicious turn considering the efforts that have been made to shut down 8chan by force over the preceding days.
For GamerGate’s part it has taken these attacks in stride, responding with equal measures of contempt, mockery, and hard work in their respective fronts. Mr. Brennan, better known to 8chan users as “Based Hotwheels” has spared no effort to keep his site, and GamerGate with it, alive and well under the brunt of an unending storm. For that he has our heartfelt gratitude.
-Acid Man
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