El Paso, the third mass shooting announced on 8chan, shows how its /pol/ board deliberately radicalizes users into mass shooters and gamifies massacring people
lone shooter, assault rifle, online manifesto, a link to a live stream—appears to be contagious. https://www.newyorker.com/... Dave Zatz / @davezatz : @Techmeme 'Let's do nothing because it's just not possible to stop something' seems to be a common refrain. Brandon Wall / @walldo : “there's nothing particularly special about 8chan, there are no content algorithms, hosting technology immaterial. The only thing radicalizing 8chan users are other 8chan users.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... Laurence Tribe / @tribelaw : We need to think hard about how the virality of evil might be combatted without sacrificing freedom of speech https://www.newyorker.com/... @axios : The founder of 8chan has called for the site to be shut down after the suspected terrorist in the El Paso mass shooting posted an anti-immigrant manifesto on the message board shortly before killing 20 people, the Washington Post reports. https://www.axios.com/... Andrew Marantz / @andrewmarantz : 8chan users are passing around a Google spreadsheet listing recent mass shootings: date, location, number of kills. It's hard to imagine that this list won't keep growing. New by me: https://www.newyorker.com/... Robert Meyer Burnett / @burnettrm : White Nationalist Terrorism. Currently the greatest domestic threat facing our nation. We need to call it what it is, and empower our intelligence agencies to combat it with all available resources: https://www.bellingcat.com/... Borzou Daragahi / @borzou : 'Ever since the Christchurch shooting spree, 8chan users have commented regularly on Brenton Tarrant's high bodycount, and made references to their desire to “beat his high score”.' https://www.bellingcat.com/... https://twitter.com/... Rick Wilson / @therickwilson : If we found an Islamic terrorist hub called, let's just say...JihadChan, where Muslim terrorists were indoctrinated and recruited, where they posted their manifestos, and were cheered on and supported, we'd flood the zone with everything from LE to cyber to JDAMS. Ellen K. Pao / @ekp : How many people does it take to end internet hate and platform influence? We now have 8chan founder, Twitter's @ev, Facebook's @chrishughes and more. When do we start listening? https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Tommy Vietor / @tvietor08 : Three mass shootings — El Paso, the mosque killings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the synagogue shooting in Poway, Calif. — have been announced in advance on 8chan, often accompanied by racist writings that seem engineered to go viral on the internet. https://www.nytimes.com/... @_lilchen : cw: violence “The site remains nearly completely unmoderated... Users on 8chan frequently lionize mass shooters using jokey internet vernacular, referring to their body counts as “high scores” and creating memes praising the killers.” https://twitter.com/... David Grossman / @davidgross_man : I feel like this sums up a lot of the internet https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Jeff Roberts / @jeffjohnroberts : 8Chan has become the domestic version of Al Qaeda propaganda sites This will be more grist for the Section 230 debate https://www.bellingcat.com/... @3l3v3nth : Gamification works or the big tech companies wouldn't use it to make their employees ‘feel’ like they are being treated fair The El Paso Shooting and the Gamification of Terror https://www.bellingcat.com/... Noah Smith / @noahpinion : Thread. The Daily Stormer was essentially chased off the web, why not 8chan? https://twitter.com/... Mark Seibel / @markseibel : 8chan's founder tells @drewharwell the suspected shooter's name is on the 8chan post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Julia Carrie Wong / @juliacarriew : If the 8chan document is confirmed, El Paso will be the third mass shooting announced on 8chan in advance in less than six months, targeting Muslims, Jews, and Latinos respectively. On 8chan right now, the suspect is being cheered as “our guy” @korybing : https://slate.com/... it won't solve the problem but classifying places like this as hate-groups and disbanding them sure would help. Joshua Holland / @joshuahol : I remember when the Constitution wasn't a suicide pact. That was about giving criminal suspects due process. “8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now” https://slate.com/... Drogon / @drogon_dracarys : The El Paso shooting also prompted [8chan's] founder early Sunday to urge its current owners to “do the world a favor and shut it off.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Drew Harwell / @drewharwell : New: Three mass shootings this year began with hateful rants on 8chan. Its founder told me the site is a haven for “domestic terrorists” and that its owner “should do the world a favor and shut it down” https://wapo.st/2KhKYEm @slate : The suspected El Paso shooter appears to have followed the same internet playbook as the Christchurch, New Zealand, murderer. https://slate.com/... Leo Strauss / @drleostrauss : 4chan from 2011 on in many *niche* ways most effective intelligence service in world. 8chan began 2013 after 4chan banned Gamergate; an even more chaotic version. Striking how @cnn @msnbc @nytimes @washingtonpost et al. feature almost zero expertise re these online vectors. https://twitter.com/... Solomon L. Wisenberg / @wisenbergsol : You can be a lone-wolf loser and be radicalized through an on-line ecosystem of hate. They are not mutually exclusive concepts. https://twitter.com/... Jason Kint / @jason_kint : I honestly didn't believe this and just checked for myself. Newsrooms are taking up #NoNotoriety by not publishing killer's identities meanwhile Drudge is publishing the killer's manifesto in full. I know sites love Drudge's traffic but this is a toxic move in every way. https://twitter.com/... Jim Roberts / @nycjim : How 8chan became a meme-filled refuge for hate and the go-to place for white nationalists to post their manifestos. https://slate.com/... Matt Pearce / @mattdpearce : Bellingcat reports this is the third time this year that an attacker has posted on 8chan's /pol channel before their attack: https://www.bellingcat.com/... Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : The online WS radicalization cycle starts with watching slightly edgy videos and ends with Christchurch/Poway/Gilroy/El Paso. This can be disrupted at several points, but a good start would be the responsible tech companies blockading 8chan and the like: https://fsi-live.s3.us-west- 1.amazonaws.com/... https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Nina Schick / @ninadschick : “This is the way far right terrorism works: it is foolish, bordering on suicidal, to attribute attacks like the El Paso shooting...to “lone wolves”. [The shooter was] radicalized in an ecosystem of right-wing terror that deliberately seeks to inspire such massacres.” https://twitter.com/... Alastair Thompson / @althecat : There's a direct line between Christchurch and this latest obscenity. The gamification of mass killing inside 8chan. https://twitter.com/... Sniper Barbie / @ladyred_6 : “The most important takeaways from the El Paso shooting: 8chan's /pol board continues to deliberately radicalize mass shooters. The act of massacring innocents has been gamified. This second point is illustrated clearly by some comments found online in the wake of this shooting” https://twitter.com/... Niall Ferguson / @nfergus : This is the most insightful commentary I have read tonight on the horrific massacre in El Paso: “The El Paso Shooting and the Gamification of Terror” - bellingcat https://www.bellingcat.com/... Walter Olson / @walterolson : “It is foolish, bordering on suicidal, to attribute attacks like [El Paso and Gilroy] to “lone wolves”. Both shooters were radicalized in an ecosystem of right-wing terror that deliberately seeks to inspire such massacres.” https://www.bellingcat.com/... @bellingcat : We've just published the newest piece from @IwriteOK, who wrote on the El Paso shooter and the sadly predictable role of 8chan in yet another white supremacist rampage in America. https://www.bellingcat.com/... Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel : i dont claim to know what the answer is. perhaps driving them from this community could have an intense effect to tamp down. but, as this piece notes, there's something that feels different since christchurch. worried these communities are super resilient https://www.bellingcat.com/... Michael R. Trice, PhD / @mikertrice : The role /pol (on 4chan & 8chan) has played over the last decade in manifesting real consequences from online hate should not be overlooked. https://twitter.com/... Rich Miller / @capitolfax : “There will be more killers, more gleeful celebration of body counts on 8chan, and more bloody attempts to beat the last killer's ‘high score’” https://twitter.com/... Adam Conover / @adamconover : Essential context on how online communities are encouraging and game-ifying terrorist violence. https://www.bellingcat.com/... https://twitter.com/... Rajit Hewagama / @rajit_h : “What we see here is evidence of the only real innovation 8chan has brought to global terrorism: the gamification of mass violence. We see this not just in the references to “high scores”, but in the very way the Christchurch shooting was carried out” #ElPaso https://twitter.com/...
I'm heartbroken about what's happening in my country. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. It's time for good people with different views to stop finger pointing and come together to address this violence for the good of our country.
This is an outstanding piece by @IwriteOK about the concept of “high scores” on 8chan, where white nationalist terror has been gamified by lonely white men seeking identity and acclaim, using the only vocabulary and success metric they know. https://www.bellingcat.com/...
White-supremacist terrorism is nothing new, but this sickeningly specific instantiation of it—lone shooter, assault rifle, online manifesto, a link to a live stream—appears to be contagious. https://www.newyorker.com/...
“there's nothing particularly special about 8chan, there are no content algorithms, hosting technology immaterial. The only thing radicalizing 8chan users are other 8chan users.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ...
The founder of 8chan has called for the site to be shut down after the suspected terrorist in the El Paso mass shooting posted an anti-immigrant manifesto on the message board shortly before killing 20 people, the Washington Post reports. https://www.axios.com/...
8chan users are passing around a Google spreadsheet listing recent mass shootings: date, location, number of kills. It's hard to imagine that this list won't keep growing. New by me: https://www.newyorker.com/...
White Nationalist Terrorism. Currently the greatest domestic threat facing our nation. We need to call it what it is, and empower our intelligence agencies to combat it with all available resources: https://www.bellingcat.com/...
'Ever since the Christchurch shooting spree, 8chan users have commented regularly on Brenton Tarrant's high bodycount, and made references to their desire to “beat his high score”.' https://www.bellingcat.com/... https://twitter.com/...
If we found an Islamic terrorist hub called, let's just say...JihadChan, where Muslim terrorists were indoctrinated and recruited, where they posted their manifestos, and were cheered on and supported, we'd flood the zone with everything from LE to cyber to JDAMS.
How many people does it take to end internet hate and platform influence? We now have 8chan founder, Twitter's @ev, Facebook's @chrishughes and more. When do we start listening? https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Three mass shootings — El Paso, the mosque killings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the synagogue shooting in Poway, Calif. — have been announced in advance on 8chan, often accompanied by racist writings that seem engineered to go viral on the internet. https://www.nytimes.com/…
cw: violence “The site remains nearly completely unmoderated... Users on 8chan frequently lionize mass shooters using jokey internet vernacular, referring to their body counts as “high scores” and creating memes praising the killers.” https://twitter.com/...
Gamification works or the big tech companies wouldn't use it to make their employees ‘feel’ like they are being treated fair The El Paso Shooting and the Gamification of Terror https://www.bellingcat.com/...
If the 8chan document is confirmed, El Paso will be the third mass shooting announced on 8chan in advance in less than six months, targeting Muslims, Jews, and Latinos respectively. On 8chan right now, the suspect is being cheered as “our guy”
I remember when the Constitution wasn't a suicide pact. That was about giving criminal suspects due process. “8chan Is a Normal Part of Mass Shootings Now” https://slate.com/...
The El Paso shooting also prompted [8chan's] founder early Sunday to urge its current owners to “do the world a favor and shut it off.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
New: Three mass shootings this year began with hateful rants on 8chan. Its founder told me the site is a haven for “domestic terrorists” and that its owner “should do the world a favor and shut it down” https://wapo.st/2KhKYEm
4chan from 2011 on in many *niche* ways most effective intelligence service in world. 8chan began 2013 after 4chan banned Gamergate; an even more chaotic version. Striking how @cnn @msnbc @nytimes @washingtonpost et al. feature almost zero expertise re these online vectors. https…
You can be a lone-wolf loser and be radicalized through an on-line ecosystem of hate. They are not mutually exclusive concepts. https://twitter.com/...
I honestly didn't believe this and just checked for myself. Newsrooms are taking up #NoNotoriety by not publishing killer's identities meanwhile Drudge is publishing the killer's manifesto in full. I know sites love Drudge's traffic but this is a toxic move in every way. https://…
Bellingcat reports this is the third time this year that an attacker has posted on 8chan's /pol channel before their attack: https://www.bellingcat.com/...
The online WS radicalization cycle starts with watching slightly edgy videos and ends with Christchurch/Poway/Gilroy/El Paso. This can be disrupted at several points, but a good start would be the responsible tech companies blockading 8chan and the like: https://fsi-live.s3.us-we…
“This is the way far right terrorism works: it is foolish, bordering on suicidal, to attribute attacks like the El Paso shooting...to “lone wolves”. [The shooter was] radicalized in an ecosystem of right-wing terror that deliberately seeks to inspire such massacres.” https://twit…
“The most important takeaways from the El Paso shooting: 8chan's /pol board continues to deliberately radicalize mass shooters. The act of massacring innocents has been gamified. This second point is illustrated clearly by some comments found online in the wake of this shooting” …
This is the most insightful commentary I have read tonight on the horrific massacre in El Paso: “The El Paso Shooting and the Gamification of Terror” - bellingcat https://www.bellingcat.com/...
“It is foolish, bordering on suicidal, to attribute attacks like [El Paso and Gilroy] to “lone wolves”. Both shooters were radicalized in an ecosystem of right-wing terror that deliberately seeks to inspire such massacres.” https://www.bellingcat.com/...
We've just published the newest piece from @IwriteOK, who wrote on the El Paso shooter and the sadly predictable role of 8chan in yet another white supremacist rampage in America. https://www.bellingcat.com/...
i dont claim to know what the answer is. perhaps driving them from this community could have an intense effect to tamp down. but, as this piece notes, there's something that feels different since christchurch. worried these communities are super resilient https://www.bellingcat.c…
The role /pol (on 4chan & 8chan) has played over the last decade in manifesting real consequences from online hate should not be overlooked. https://twitter.com/...
“There will be more killers, more gleeful celebration of body counts on 8chan, and more bloody attempts to beat the last killer's ‘high score’” https://twitter.com/...
“What we see here is evidence of the only real innovation 8chan has brought to global terrorism: the gamification of mass violence. We see this not just in the references to “high scores”, but in the very way the Christchurch shooting was carried out” #ElPaso https://twitter.com/…