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8chan/kun
EntityQ18712091· pop 23· linked from 524 articles

Also known as 8kun, ∞chan, infinitechan

8kun, previously called 8chan, Infinitechan or Infinitychan (stylized as ∞chan), is an imageboard website composed of user-created message boards. An owner moderates each board, with minimal interaction from site administration. The site has been linked to white supremacism, neo-Nazism, the alt-right, racism, antisemitism, hate crimes, and multiple mass shootings. The site has been known to host child pornography; as a result, it was filtered out from Google Search in 2015. Several of the site's boards played an active role in the Gamergate harassment campaign, encouraging Gamergate affiliates

Key facts

Website.name
8kun
Website.logo
8kun logo 2021.png
Website.logo_alt
A yellow brush-stroke styled 8 outlined in black, with "kun" underneath in white text outlined in black
Website.advertising
Yes
Website.commercial
Yes
Website.type
Imageboard
Website.language
English (users can create language-specific boards)
Website.registration
Optional
Website.author
Fredrick Brennan
Website.current_status
Active

via Wikipedia infobox

~19 min read

Encyclopedic overview

17 sections
Contents
  • History
  • August 2019 removal from clearnet
  • Rebrand to 8kun and return to clearnet
  • Usage in planning the storming of the U.S. Capitol
  • Controversies
  • Gamergate
  • Swatting incidents and violent threats
  • Child pornography
  • Donald Trump presidential campaign
  • QAnon
  • Louisiana Police's antifa list
  • 2019 shootings
  • Christchurch mosque shootings
  • Poway synagogue shooting
  • El Paso shooting
  • See also
  • References

8kun, previously called 8chan, Infinitechan or Infinitychan (stylized as ∞chan), is an imageboard website composed of user-created message boards. An owner moderates each board, with minimal interaction from site administration. The site has been linked to white supremacism, neo-Nazism, the alt-right, racism, antisemitism, hate crimes, and multiple mass shootings. The site has been known to host child pornography; as a result, it was filtered out from Google Search in 2015. Several of the site's boards played an active role in the Gamergate harassment campaign, encouraging Gamergate affiliates to frequent 8chan after 4chan banned the topic. 8chan is the origin and main center of activity of the discredited QAnon conspiracy theory.

Shortly before the 2019 El Paso shooting, a four-page message justifying the attack was posted to the site, and police have stated that they are "reasonably confident" it was posted by the perpetrator. In the aftermath of the back-to-back mass shootings on August 3 in El Paso and August 4 in Dayton, Ohio, respectively, the site was taken off clearnet on August 5, 2019, when network infrastructure provider Cloudflare stopped providing their content delivery network (CDN) service. Voxility, a web services company that had been renting servers to Epik, the site's new domain registrar, as well as Epik's CDN provider subsidiary BitMitigate, also terminated service. After several attempts to return to clearnet were ultimately stymied by providers denying service to 8chan, the site returned to clearnet as 8kun in November 2019 through a Russian hosting provider.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “8chan/kun” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.