Nazi ideology and recruitment rampant on 8kun’s “Politics, News, Debate” board

The only thing more maddening then arguing with nazis online is arguing with some white nationalist-adjacent alt-righter who tries to claim that nazis no longer exist. “You mean the National Socialist Party from WWII era Germany? You know that was around 88 years ago, right?” All this gaslighting is making me feel crazy (the desired effect?) and if I don’t do something about it (outside of wasting my time fighting with anons and MAGA bros on twitter) I feel like the despair and madness could crush me.

With that mission in my mind, I decided to check in on 8kun (formerly known as 8chan) to see what kind of political discourse the channers (kunners?) were up to these days. After being dumped by their old hosts mostly due to activists like Fredrick Brennan and their efforts to shed light on the 8chan situation, Jim Watkins found a new host (in Russia, apparently) and has rebranded as 8kun. After all the hassle that Watkins had to go through to get the site back up, I figured that their might be some sort of attempt to ‘bring down the temperature’, as it were. I could have been more wrong, but not by much.

The first thing I notice the board that used to be called /pol/, or Politically Incorrect, has been replaced by a board called /pnd/, or Politics, News, Debate, with a banner gif featuring white supremacist mass murderer Dylann Roof pointing a gun at the camera.

If anyone thought that Watkins would show any restraint (and I confess, I didn’t have much faith) that thought is shattered, even before getting to any of the user content.

First, I wanted to see how far I had to scroll to get to something explicitly supporting white supremacy or nazism. It did not take long. It’s worth noting that in the first pinned thread (pinned to the top by a moderator) regarding “Questions That Don’t Deserve Their Own Thread” is full of anti-semitism, christian dominionism, and fantasies of the coming “boogaloo” – code for the coming war in America (and possibly the world) where white supremacists will finally get to kill all those who don’t fit into their narrow view of western culture.

In this screengrab, you can clearly see what ‘effort’ Watkins has put in to try and legally distance himself from the content his users continue to fill his site with. Under each post is text that reads: “ Disclaimer: this post and the subject matter and contents thereof – text, media, or otherwise – do not necessarily reflect the views of the 8kun administration. ” Here is a question: If these users have been run off of the other mainstream platforms, and Watkins decided to allow them to post on his website, is he not making an editorial decision by giving this kind of hate speech a home?

The next pinned thread is called “META THREAD – INTERNET PEOPLE NEED HOTPOCKETS AND A HOLOCAUST” – a more obvious anti-semitic statement, but with the added bonus of a threat of violence. “Any meta issues posted on /pnd/ to be entered in this thread” reads the OP, and then lists the current rules of /pnd/. One of the ‘meta’ discussions the anons have decided to have is about the belief that “Alex Jones is a Zionist. if you didn’t know that yet.” The more extreme white supremacists (the ones not afraid to ask “the JQ” or Jewish Question) believe that Alex Jones is controlled opposition because he refuses to acknowledge the “real” enemy (in their mind, the Jews).

The next post down (below the two pinned threads) was a thread titled “Jews run big tech” – then gives pictures of these supposed Jews (not gonna try to confirm, because it doesn’t matter at all) and how they are “connected”. They also posted a racist meme with an exaggerated cartoon of what appears to be an african american with the N word repeated over and over. then the poster goes on to describe in more detail the alleged Jewish conspiracy.

All of this would be bad enough. I mean, it is apparent what kind of “politics” and “debate” that is going down here. But the thread I came to next (the fourth from the top!) chilled me to the core and is ultimately why I decided to write this article. The image that heads the thread is one depicting Adolf Hitler and a quote from Mein Kampf.

This image is followed by the question: “Is there any equivalent to national socialism – without supporting genocide, gestapo, police state or the holocaust?” It isn’t clear whether this question is meant to hide the posters true intentions or if they are responding to the racial message of Hitler while trying to find a way to be a Nazi without all the violence and oppression. Whichever his intent, the anons are quick to jump in and help.

At first, someone tries to argue that “National Socialism doesn’t support any of those except for the gestapo which is needed in any state to effectively deal with treason.” Which is truly revealing. But before the OP (original poster) gets the wrong idea in his pretty little nazi head, other anons jump in to correct the record. Holocaust denial insues.

To be perfectly clear, the anons make sure that the OP understands that “National Socialism is not the evil you have been lead to believe. There was no genocide campaigns, there was no holocaust.” Other anons chime in about immigration and “a mongrel workforce” – reinforcing that the new Nazis aren’t just concerned with Jews, but are intimately connected with the broader Right Wing anti-immigrant push. Nazism isn’t something that happened in the past – it is a disease that has festered in the cracks of society for at least 80 years and is now popping up like a long lost disease we thought we had eradicated. It is no wonder that there is a strong overlap between modern nazis and the anti-vaxx movement, but that will have to wait for a future article.

Not to put too much of a fine point on this, but the thread doesn’t get better from there. Here is one more screengrab from this thread that should make it abundantly clear that 8kun is not only a haven for nazis but an active hub for recruitment.

An anon adds, “Why would a human being not want the best characteristics of National Socialism? Non white must all be killed. That includes jews. The masses must never have freedom, as they always chose their own destruction and the destruction of others around them. Supporting genocide, gestapo, police state and the holocaust are the best things that serve the interests of a functional man.”