On Wednesday, last week, the owner of the controversial website 8chan was subpoenaed to appear before Congress by a bipartisan House Homeland Security committee.
8chan, an anonymous message board, has garnered notoriety in recent months due to the use of its platform by extremist hate groups. It has also been connected to at least 3 mass shootings in 2019.
Jim Watkins, an American web entrepreneur now lives in the Philippines and has been under intense pressure and negative publicity recently. The website itself was forced to go offline after several web hosting and service providing tech firms withdrew their services.
The attacker behind the hateful and racist attack in El Paso, Texas, most recently posted minutes before murdering 20 people and injuring many more. The debate around web policing, freedom of speech and stopping hateful racist vitriol online has intensified following similar attacks in recent years.
