HOUSTON — To grapple with what happened at the Walmart in El Paso, it's important to understand where the hatred and darkness is festering online, every single day.
Mainstream sites like Facebook and Twitter are shutting out white nationalists and their beliefs, but people like the alleged El Paso shooter are finding refuge elsewhere.
"They're going to darker and darker corners of the web," said Dr. Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University in North Carolina, who studies how hate groups are using the dark web to spread their message.
Police are investigating if the shooter in El Paso is indeed the same person who posted a four-page manifesto on 8chan moments before the attack happened. Both the shooters in New Zealand's mosque massacre and the Poway, Calif., synagogue shooting announced their plans in advance on 8chan.
"This is the place where these guys will go to discuss," said Squire. "They usually don't have an in-person network. They might have one or two friends. But they're getting most of their feedback online."
8chan was a message board first created in 2013 by Fredrick Brennan. The site operated out of the Phillipines and its visitors posted anonymously.
On Sunday night, Cloudflare, the web services company who hosted the site, announced it was shuttering 8chan in response to the mass shootings.
"8chan has repeatedly proven itself to be a cesspool of hate," the company wrote in a long missive posted on its blog. "they have proven themselves to be lawless and that lawlessness has caused multiple tragic deaths. Even if 8chan may not have violated the letter of the law in refusing to moderate their hate-filled community, they have created an environment that revels in violating its spirit."
8chan became a megaphone and recruiting tool for white nationalists.
"It's very dark," said Squire. "This is not Facebook memes. What they're talking about is very dark. They're inspiring each other. We have to do something."
8chan's current owner, Jim Watkins, stated publically after the carnage in New Zealand that social media platforms and sites should not be held responsible or censored as a result of a shooting.
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