Jim Watkins, the owner of 8chan, has been subpoenaed by the Committee of Homeland Security, and is being called to appear before the Committee to answer questions related to the recent shootings, and how 8chan is purportedly responsible for allowing “extremist content” on the platform in relation to the Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas shootings.
The news comes courtesy of tweets from the official House of Homeland Security Committee, which tweeted out the following on August 14th, 2019.
We have questions on what is being done to counter this trend so we can be sure it is being properly addressed. Receiving testimony from Mr. Watkins is critical to our oversight on this critical issue.
— House Homeland Security Committee (@HomelandDems) August 14, 2019
This is a follow-up to the previous request sent by the Homeland Committee back on August 6th, 2019, where they asked for 8chan owner Jim Watkins to appear before Congress to answer questions related to what they claimed was “extremist content” on the site.
Watkins replied stating that he was heading back to America as he was receiving the letter from the Homeland Committee and that he would be available to speak via telephone.
He asked the Homeland Committee to give him a call and that his phone works worldwide.
“This message was identified as spam.” Just making sure you received it, @HomelandDems. pic.twitter.com/8K3JNpHPzp
— 8chan (8ch.net) (@infinitechan) August 7, 2019
The Homeland Committee’s tweets are lit-up with responses addressing the fact that 8chan is just an imageboard, and that all of the shooters in recent months also posted to and used Facebook and Instagram, and if CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be required to come before Congress to answer questions about his platform being used to promulgate “extremist content”.
What 8chan is just a blank posting board. How in the hell did they have anything to do with it. All shooters had a Facebook and Instagram they must be to blame also. Better shut them all down! Bias censorship at its finest
— sheilamickelson (@sheilamickelso1) August 15, 2019
Didn’t some of them also post on Facebook? Is Mark Zuckerberg gonna be subpoenaed too?
— Hammerheart (@Hammerheart3) August 15, 2019
Now to be fair to Zuckerberg in relation to addressing so-called “extremist content”, he did hand over his balls to the government and commit to the Christchurch Call as well as working with the global tech giants to call for worldwide censorship of “harmful content”.
So he’s technically already playing ball with the despots.
Watkins, on the other hand, still values freedom of speech, something that’s becoming increasingly rare in today’s society and valued by a thinning few. Obviously his championing of this endangered right has put him in the crosshairs of Congress, and they now want to question him on why he isn’t infringing on the First Amendment.
That’s not to mention that 8chan was forced down when the hosting providers and security services such as Cloudflare dropped the site, forcing it underground.
[Correction: Originally the article stated that 8chan could be found on Zeronet, but it’s being said that no one from 8chan had anything to do with with setting up Zeronet.]
8chan on zeronet was not made by our team and I have no idea who set that up.
— Ron (@CodeMonkeyZ) August 7, 2019
What’s more is that this is all ignoring the fact that the Dayton shooter was actually a Leftist, Antifa supporter, as reported by Death Metal, and wasn’t even a white supremacist. So it looks like the Homeland Committee needs to brush up on their facts before throwing around salacious and unfounded allegations at Watkins. Of course, such libelous claims would only come back to bite them on the butt if they were in a country with an honest government.
(Thanks for the news tip Iswear12)
