Internet infrastructure company Cloudflare has announced it will stop offering far-right message board 8chan protection from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in the wake of the El Paso terrorist attack.
The 21-year-old suspect in the El Paso Walmart shooting, which resulted in the deaths of 20 people, is believed to have posted a white nationalist rant on 8chan before the attack.
The suspect in the Christchurch shooting also posted a link to his screed on 8chan and a link to his Facebook live feed, and the suspect in a synagogue shooting in Poway, California posted a racist and antisemitic letter on 8chan.
Cloudflare, which provided DDoS protection to 8chan to prevent the site being taken down by activists targeting the site, had resisted calls to cut ties with 8chan in the wake of the El Paso attack, but on Monday, the company relented.
Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince said in a blog post that 8chan would no longer get protection from Cloudflare as of midnight Pacific Time.
“The rationale is simple: they have proven themselves to be lawless and that lawlessness has caused multiple tragic deaths,” he said. “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.”
Prince said the decision had not been taken lightly.
“We reluctantly tolerate content that we find reprehensible, but we draw the line at platforms that have demonstrated they directly inspire tragic events and are lawless by design. 8chan has crossed that line,” he said. “It will therefore no longer be allowed to use our services.”
Less than 24 hours earlier, Prince had told the Guardian that ceasing to provide services to 8chan would not make the internet safer or reduce hatred online.