Defiant 8chan Owner Tells Congress He Won’t Delete Hate Speech
James Watkins, the owner of the anonymous online forum 8chan, told the Congressional Committee on Homeland Security today that his company will not remove the hate-filled posts his platform is best known for.
“My company has no intention of deleting constitutionally protected hate speech. I feel the remedy for this type of speech is counter speech, and I’m certain that this is the view of the American justice system,” his prepared testimony reads.
8chan, a spinoff of the forum site 4chan (and, like its clone, often full of anonymous commenters’ vile remarks), has been linked to three acts of mass white supremacist violence in recent months. In one of those incidents, a gunman in El Paso, Texas posted his racist manifesto there before opening fire in a Wal-Mart and killing 22 people.