8chan, 8kun, 4chan, Endchan. If you’ve spent enough time on the internet, you’ve likely heard of at least one of these boards.
Depending on where you’re getting your news from, these message boards might have been portrayed as anything from some of the few places that truly support free speech to cesspools of extremism and pornography.
In a way, both are true. Due to the mostly unrestricted nature of these message boards, which have little moderation, they are popular with the alt-right.
To some people, these message boards are synonymous with harmless Pepe the Frog memes. To others, they are dangerous sites that spread racism and extremist views.
Today, we will be taking a closer look at the evolution of these various message boards and exploring each one in depth.
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Understanding 8chan
Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
8chan was founded in 2013 by Fredrick Brennan, a programmer, software developer, and type designer. It is not as well-known as 4chan, which is around a decade older than 8chan, but more on 4chan later.
Brennan created 8chan in response to what he considered a restriction on free speech on the part of 4chan. At the time, 4chan was cracking down on various extremist content, such as GamerGate content, and moderators were deleting some posts.
As an imageboard, 8chan was similar to 4chan. Users could create anonymous message boards or post image-based comments and responses to existing threads, without logging in or having the post linked to them in any identifiable way.
In an interview, Brennan, pictured below, revealed that he actually came up with the idea for 8chan while on a psychedelic mushroom trip. He envisioned a message board, similar to 4chan, but where people could post whatever they want, without any moderation whatsoever – in other words, 4chan, but with even fewer rules.
Fredrick R. Brennan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
And so, 8chan was born. However, it started experiencing problems soon enough.
Due to the lack of moderation, people started posting child pornography. After complaints to the domain registrar from concerned citizens, 8chan lost its domain and had to move to another URL in 2015, although it retained the name 8chan.
As per free speech laws, Brennan was not actually legally responsible for content posted on his site – if you own a forum, you’re not responsible for what your users post. The exception is copyrighted content and child porn, which 8chan said it did moderate strictly.
Brennan acknowledged the existence of pedophilia threads on 8chan but simply brushed them away as a cost of free speech.
8chan managed to exist for another few years, but Brennan already got tired of the site in 2016, transferring ownership to Jim Waktins (pictured below). Jim is a former attack helicopter repairman for the US military who moved to the Philippines, where he made a living creating porn sites and tending to a pig farm.
Fredrick Brennan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Originally, the plan was for the two to work together; Watkins, who owned a web hosting company, offered a partnership with Brennan on the condition Brennan would come to work for him in the Philippines. At the time, 8chan was suffering from frequent downtime and various other issues, so the deal appealed to Brenna.
However, Brennan himself eventually cut ties with both 8chan and Watkins and reversed course, changing his opinion about 8chan and battling to keep it offline while leaving the Philippines.
Perhaps he left to avoid an arrest warrant that could have put him in jail for 12 years. Brennan, who suffers from brittle bones disease, is confined to a wheelchair.
Watkins was seemingly more extreme than Brennan, but 8chan didn’t last much longer. Before the El Paso mass shooting in 2019, in which a mass shooter shot up a Walmart and killed over 20 people, injuring many others, the shooter allegedly posted a manifesto on 8chan, according to CNN.
Just 20 minutes before police first received calls with reports of the shooting, the shooter posted a four-page manifesto on 8chan, where he said he will probably die soon and ranted against immigrants and Hispanics, blaming them for taking jobs away from Americans.
That wasn’t the first time a shooter was linked to an 8chan post. In fact, it was the third time that year, with the Christchurch shooter in New Zealand (who shot up two mosques and killed over 50 people) also believed to have posted a manifesto on 8chan.
Furthermore, someone identifying as the gunman in the mass shooting in Poway, California, posted a link to a hate manifesto on 8chan.
However, this time, after El Paso, the tech companies making 8chan possible decided it was enough and refused to keep hosting it. While Google had already de-indexed the site, it was still online; that changed after the El Paso shooting, when the web service providers 8chan was working with refused to host it any longer.
Cloudflare published an entire blog post explaining why it was terminating its relationship with 8chan. It’s rare for Cloudflare to do that, as it generally works with all kinds of sites, regardless of the type of content it posts.
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8kun: The Successor to 8chan
After 8chan was shut down, it resurfaced as 8kun online with the assistance of a Russian internet company providing security services.
As per a Krebs on Security investigation, Washington-based web host VanwaTech, which provided hosting for 8chan and around 250 other extremist sites, was working with CNServers LLC to provide protection against DDoS attacks for those sites.
When CNServers LLC cut ties with Spartan Host, which routed internet addresses on behalf of VanwaTech, Spartan Host started working with ddos-guard[.]net, a company based in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Eventually, ddos-guard[.]net also cut ties with 8kun after the January 6 US capitol attack, which was orchestrated with the help of posters on 8kun, and it started receiving security protection from a firm called FiberHub.
8kun itself experienced various troubles, including with its domain registrar, but eventually moved to the 8kun.top domain, where it is currently live.
Despite boasting a new logo and name, 8kun is a continuation of 8chan. It has a simple motto: “Welcome to 8kun. Speak freely – legally.”
So, how does 8kun work? It is an imageboard that is structured by a hierarchy of boards, threads, thread replies, and responses to existing replies.
You can create your own board about any topic. Each board is maintained by the board owner, not affiliated with the 8kun administration in any way.
There are over 470 public boards currently on 8kun, though this is subject to change.
You can create a new thread in an existing board by uploading an image, adding text, and creating a title. Remember, 8kun is primarily an image-based board
However, you do not need to add your name or enter your email address to create a board; this is part of the decentralized and anonymous nature of 8kun.
You instead manage your threads through the use of a randomized password generated for you, although you can create your own password as well.
You can also browse existing threads in a board and click on Open Thread to see the entire thread.
User can reply to a thread with an image-based response or reply to other users. You don’t need any programming knowledge to use 8kun, although if you want to format your post, you can use the formatting guide contained in the FAQs.
8kun has faced similar criticism as 8chan, as it is basically a continuation of that site. The original 8chan founder, Brennan, came out against it as well.
8kun has very little moderation and allows users to post anything, only having one rule: “Do not post, request, or link to any content that is illegal in the United States of America and do not create boards with the purpose of posting or spreading such content.”
It also states that it will remove illegal content, with volunteer moderators removing images of child porn and banning the IP address of whoever posts them.
Other than that, board owners can make their own rules and moderate their boards accordingly.
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Exploring 4chan
Many of you likely have not heard of 8chan or 8kun but have heard of 4chan, the original image board that has been online since 2003. It was founded by Christopher Poole, who was then a 15 year old student in NYC.
The site is divided into various boards centered around different topics, including a random board (/b/) that allows users to post anything they want. There are political boards and boards related to manga, anime, NSFW content, and crypto.
Posting is anonymous and doesn’t require an account; instead, you can choose a random username for each new thread or just leave it as anonymous.
You can create new threads in a board or reply to existing threads. Since it is an imageboard, you will need to upload a picture when creating a post, but a lot of people simply upload random images like Pepe the Frog memes.
Pepe the Frog, Know Your Meme
As an aside, the Pepe the Frog meme became popularized by 4chan. Pepe is a human-like frog who is frequently shown as distressed, sad, and lonely and is often depicted as losing money in crypto or autistic.
Pepe the Frog is not the only meme that 4chan made popular. The wojak meme, for example, was also popularized by the site’s users.
It’s not just memes that 4chan has popularized; it has been influential in many ways. That’s not surprising considering how popular it is.
According to SimilarWeb, it is ranked in the top 700 sites in the world and among the top 350 sites in the US as well as being #38 in the adult site category (due to its NSFW content).
For example, 4chan has been responsible for the spread of the QAnon conspiracy theory and other theories, some of which made their way to the mainstream and were given attention by radio talk show hosts such as Alex Jones or even Fox News commentators like Tucker Carlson.
The QAnon conspiracy alleges that Donald Trump was waging a secret war against a hidden cabal of Democrat politicians engaging in pedophilia, satanic rituals, and even cannibalism.
It was built on the Pizzagate conspiracy, which alleged that Hillary Clinton and other politicians were operating a secret child sex trafficking racket out of a pizza restaurant in Washington (which eventually led to a gunman attacking the restaurant in what became known as the Pizzagate shooting).
According to an anonymous 4chan poster, going by Q, Trump was about to release The Storm, in which Clinton and other satanic Democrat politicians would be arrested.
4chan is known for being a hotbed of extremism and racism, but it does have more moderation and stricter rules than 8chan/8kun. Its rules state, for example, that outside of the “random” board, users may not post troll posts, racism, etc.
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Martravi, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Some of the posts on 4chan are harmless, others are interesting and educational, and yet others promote scams. 4chan has been involved in various controversies, though; let’s list some of them.
Steve Jobs Death Hoax
In 2008, 4chan was behind a rumor that Steve Jobs of Apple had died when he was, in fact, still alive. This rumor led to Apple’s stock falling before it was revealed that the rumor was false.
This is just another example of the kind of misinformation spread by 4chan and its users. However, this time, it wasn’t just posted on 4chan; 4chan users hacked an Apple site and posted the news about the death there.
Sarah Palin Email Hack
In 2008, a 4chan user hacked into Sarah Palin’s email account. Sarah, the former governor of Alaska, was the Republican vice presidential candidate (her presidential ticket lost to Barack Obama).
It was a simple and uncomplicated hack in nature (the hacker used Yahoo’s password reset function), and the hacker posted private information from her email account to 4chan. He was eventually sentenced to prison.
Buffalo Mass Shooting
In 2022, there was a mass shooting in Buffalo, killing 10 people in a supermarket.
Payton Gendron, the shooter, was inspired by 4chan, a site he frequented regularly. Before the attack, he published a large manifesto which borrowed concepts from 4chan, such as the replacement theory, a popular conspiracy theory often seen on 4chan and other extremist forums and imageboards.
According to The Guardian, Gendron allegedly wrote, “I only really turned racist when 4chan started giving me facts.”
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Port Orchard Murder
In a rather shocking case, posts surfaced on 4chan that seemingly showed a murdered woman, strangled to death, along with the caption, “Turns out it’s way harder to strangle someone to death than it looks on the movies.”
The post was uploaded by David Kalac, who strangled his girlfriend to death. He later gave himself up to the police.
4chan continues to be an influential site, driving various conspiracy theories, organizing doxxing and coordinated cyberbullying attacks, helping people from groups like Anonymous to coordinate, and more.
Endchan: An Alternative Image Board
Endchan is an alternative image board. While not as popular as the other image boards, it gained some popularity after 8chan was deleted from the internet.
It calls itself “the imageboard at the end of the universe” and can be accessed at Endchan.org or its mirror site at Endchan.net. There are various other frontends and mirror sites in case one gets taken down and for quicker access across the globe; you can find a list of sites under Access Options on the homepage.
It has just three rules:
- No content illegal in the United States
- No suggestive or racy content of children
- No spamming
Each board might have its individual rules.
Anyone can create an imageboard on Endchan, as part of its commitment to “promote ideas over identities.” It believes in free speech, which is why it has few rules.
Inspired by 4chan, it has a /b/ “random” board. The posting process is similar; you upload a picture and write a text message to create a new thread or reply to an existing one, without needing to provide a name or an email address.
Endchan.org and Endchan.net are accelerated by Cloudflare, which, as I mentioned, had previously dropped 8chan as a client.
However, Endchan had its own share of controversies. The most damning one was the Norway mosque shooting in 2019.
The shooter allegedly published memes and posts on Endchan praising the three shooters who were involved in the three attacks mentioned earlier in this article (the Christchurch, Poway, and El Paso shootings).
Endchan, though, admitted this on their Twitter account, stating that the person suspected to be the shooter in the Oslo attacks published their stream links on Endchan, which moderators deleted. However, it states that the shooter did not publish a manifesto on the imageboard.
Endchan further denounced the shooter in that Twitter thread, stating that he is not representative of their general user base and distanced itself from 8chan, stating that it suffered from the shutdown of 8chan, with many 8chan users heading to Endchan.
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Controversies Surrounding These Platforms
We’ve already discussed some of the specific controversies surrounding each platform, but let’s take a closer look at the kind of controversies that are common across all of these image boards and what fuels them.
The first thing to consider is the fine line between allowing unrestricted free speech and allowing extremism, hate speech, racism, and even harmful speech like doxxing to fester.
All of these imageboards purport to support free speech, which means it doesn’t take down content as frequently as platforms such as Facebook. Free speech is a double-edged sword, though, and the following type of content is typical on 4chan and similar imageboards:
- Racism
- Hate speech
- Terrorism threats
- Cyberbullying
- Softcore child porn (even hardcore child porn sometimes makes its way onto these sites before it is removed)
These image boards are also free. That means that site owners can’t always afford to hire moderators to moderate every single post; there are usually volunteer moderators, who may or may not do a good job at moderating and taking down harmful content.
Another challenge is the anonymous nature of the sites, which makes banning users quite difficult. It’s not like you can ban an account; you therefore have to ban an IP address, which can be easily changed.
Even sites that try to combat extreme content, such as Endchan and, to an extent, 4chan, often see these posts falling through the cracks due to an overall lack of moderation and a free-for-all posting policy.
Impact and Influence
As we have seen, sites like 4chan have been especially consequential in influencing popular internet culture. Organizations like Anonymous and conspiracy theories like QAnon probably wouldn’t be where they are today without 4chan, while internet memes like Pepe the Frog, wojaks, rage comics, and LOLcats would also not be widespread.
In fact, researchers studied over 100 million internet memes and found that the majority of them originated from either 4chan or Reddit.
4chan has also been one of the most significant factors driving the alt-right movement. Without it, people would not have a centralized place to discuss alt-right ideas, rage against liberals, and upload memes that drive popular alt-right internet culture.
To a lesser extent, 8chan and Endchan are also influential, although they were never as popular as 4chan itself. Various other imageboards, such as 7chan and 420chan, have also popped up, although not all of them are still active or online.
Future Outlook and Regulation
So, what’s next for sites like 4chan? The truth is that these sites are not going anywhere, as they are protected under US law despite allowing users to post racist or otherwise hateful speech.
The US has very broad free speech laws, which apply to the internet as well. Besides, these sites can be based anywhere online, and there will always be an internet provider who will be willing to host them, as we have seen with 8kun.
However, they may get a bit stricter in the content allowed, as we have seen with 4chan stepping up moderation and cracking down on disallowed content. That would drive more extreme users to more extreme sites.
The most important factor in the type of content allowed on these sites is community moderation, due to the volunteer based moderation policy these sites usually have.
Conclusion
4chan and other imageboards are here to stay. I can almost guarantee you that new imageboards will crop up as others get shut down.
These sites have a responsibility to crack down on pedophilia and other illegal content, as well as harmful content such as doxxing and shooter manifestos. Unfortunately, without proper moderation teams, this is often impossible, and content may be removed too late – even if it does get removed.
4chan can be a good source of information for certain topics, such as crypto, but browsing it will usually expose you to extreme hate speech, so proceed with caution. Also, there is a lot of porn on these sites, but some imageboards allow you to filter out NSFW content.
