The shooting suspect is believed to have posted a white nationalist manifesto on 8chan prior to the attack

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

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.

What induces men to imitate the Christchurch massacre? | Jeff Sparrow Read more

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.”

Timeline A history of recent attacks linked to white nationalism Show Hide In the past decade, across continents, white supremacists have repeatedly chosen the same targets for shootings, stabbings, bombings and car attacks. Utøya island and in Oslo, Norway 77 killed in a bomb attack, followed by a shooting targeting the island summer youth camp of Norway’s Labor party. The shooter wanted to prevent an 'invasion of Muslims' and deliberately targeted politically active young people who he saw as 'cultural Marxists'. More than half of the dead were teenagers.

Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, US Six worshippers including the temple president are killed. The shooter, a ''frustrated neo-Nazi' who had played in white power bands, was a regular on racist websites. He had previously talked to one colleague in the US military about a 'racial holy war that was coming'. Piraeus, Greece Rapper and anti-fascist activist Pavlos Fyssas was stabbed to death. A senior member of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party was imprisoned after confessing to the killing. Overland Park, Kansas, US A former Ku Klux Klan leader shot and killed three people at a Jewish centre and retirement home, one of them just 14 years old. He said he believed Jews were destroying the white race, and that diversity was a kind of genocide. Charleston, South Carolina, US Nine people killed during Bible study at a historic black church. The victims included elderly longtime church members at the Mother Emanuel AME church, and Clementa Pinckney, a state senator. The shooter, a self-avowed white supremacist, said he wanted to start a race war.

Trollhättan, Sweden An attacker stabbed students and teachers at a high school, targeting those with darker skin, police said. Three died, including 15-year-old Ahmed Hassan, who was born in Somalia and had recently moved to Sweden. Birstall, West Yorkshire, UK Labour MP Jo Cox shot and stabbed to death a week before the EU referendum vote in 2016. The man convicted of killing her, a white supremacist obsessed with the Nazis and apartheid-era South Africa, shouted: 'This is for Britain,' 'Keep Britain independent' and 'Britain first' as he killed her. Quebec City, Canada Six people killed and nineteen injured during evening prayers at a mosque in a shooting which the gunman said was prompted by Justin Trudeau’s tweet that refugees were welcome in Canada, and that 'diversity is strength'. New York, US Timothy Caughman stalked and killed by a white supremacist with a sword. His killer, an American military veteran, said he targeted a random black man on the street in New York City as a 'practice run' for a bigger attack, and as part of a campaign to persuade white women not to enter into interracial relationships. Portland, Oregon Two men were killed and one injured after they tried to intervene to protect young women on a public train who were being targeted with an anti-Muslim tirade. Their alleged killer shouted 'Free speech or die' in the courtroom, and 'Death to Antifa!' Finsbury Park, London, UK One killed and 12 people injured after a van ploughed into worshippers outside a mosque. The killer shouted 'I want to kill all Muslims – I did my bit' after the van attack. A judge concluded he had avidly consumed anti-Muslim propaganda from prominent rightwing figures. Charlottesville, Virginia, US Heather Heyer killed and dozens injured after a car ploughed into anti-Nazi protesters. The killer had been obsessed with Hitler as a teenager, according to a former teacher. Kentucky, US Man attempted to enter black church before allegedly killing two black people in a supermarket. A witness said that during the attack, the alleged shooter said: 'Whites don’t kill whites.' Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US 11 killed in a mass shooting targeting the Tree of Life synagogue. The alleged shooter had an active profile on an extremist social media site, where he accused Jewish people of trying to bring 'evil' Muslims into the US, and wrote that a refugee aid organisation 'likes to bring invaders in that kill our people'. Christchurch, New Zealand 51 people were killed and 49 injured in two consecutive attacks on mosques during Friday prayers. The gunman live-streamed the first attack on Facebook Live. They opened the live stream by urging viewers to 'subscribe to PewDiePie', a meme used by the online alt-right and white supremacists. Poway, California One person killed in mass shooting targeting a synagogue in Poway, California, US. The alleged shooter, 19, from California, opened fire in a synagogue during Passover services, killing a 60-year-old woman and injuring three others. An“open letter” posted on the 8chan extremist message board before the attack included white nationalist conspiracy rhetoric and said the shooter was inspired by the New Zealand mosque attacks. Walmart shooting, El Paso, Texas 21 people killed after a shooter opened fire at a busy Walmart store packed with families shopping. Two dozen more were injured. The 21-year-old white male suspect had driven nine hours to reach his target. and had posted a "manifesto" on 8chan. Lois Beckett and Martin Belam

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.

“If I could wave a magic wand and make all of the bad things that are on the internet go away – and I personally would put the Daily Stormer and 8chan in that category of bad things – I would wave that magic wand tomorrow,” Prince said. “It would be the easiest thing in the world and it would feel incredibly good for us to kick 8chan off our network, but I think it would step away from the obligation that we have and cause that community to still exist and be more lawless over time.”

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In 2017, after the deadly far-right rally in Charlottesville Virginia, Cloudflare stopped providing protection to extremist neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer. Prince previously told the Guardian he was “deeply uncomfortable” with that decision, and in the blog post on Monday, he said that action at the time caused a “brief interruption” for Daily Stormer, but it quickly came back online using a Cloudflare competitor.

“Today, the Daily Stormer is still available and still disgusting,” he said “They have bragged that they have more readers than ever. They are no longer Cloudflare’s problem, but they remain the internet’s problem.”

He said he had “little doubt” the same will happen with 8chan.