8Chan Deposition

I've posted every couple of months for almost a year about the internet message board 8Chan, perhaps the most wretched hive of scum and villainy on the internet, which is saying something. Child porn, conspiracy whackaloonery, neo-Nazi recruiting, manifestos from mass shooters (accompanied by the cheers of the CHUDS who egg them on)... it was all to be found on 8chan, which has been offline for three weeks since it was dumped by its DDoS security provider Cloudflare.

The current owner of 8Chan was summoned to give a deposition before the House Homeland Security Committee. While the deposition took place behind closed doors, the owner of 8Chan prepared a statement (PDF) claiming that his platform adhered to 'free speech' principles, pretty much ignoring the torrent of death threats which aren't protected speech. The joint statement from Chairman Bennie G. Thompson and Ranking Member Mike Rogers after the deposition was noncommittal.

In the fever swamps of conspiracy pushers, the takedown of 8Chan is seen as a 'Deep State' plot to derail the 'QAnon' phenomenon- the huckster/hoaxster behind the lunacy informed followers not to trust 'outside comms' (though there may be a loophole). It's a bit maddening not to know the substance of the deposition, and the lack of transparency will play into the hands of the paranoid, but it looks like the site is down for the count, which is music to the site's founder's ears.