The creation of 8chan
Brennan founded 8chan in 2013, but it began to gain traction in 2014 at the height of GamerGate. The term "GamerGate" is used to describe a controversial online movement that represented the clash between those advocating for greater inclusion in gaming against internet trolls who believed the video game industry and its representation in the press was being influenced by liberals.
Moderators of 4chan, an online image board that preceded 8chan, began taking down GamerGate-related content, prompting users to turn to Brennan's 8chan. "I saw the GamerGate controversy as a way to expand 8chan," Brennan told The Wall Street Journal in March. "I wanted to unseat 4chan and to me it didn't matter how it happened."
Brennan came up with the concept for 8chan while on a psychedelic mushroom trip, he said in an interview with the website Know Your Meme four years ago. He sought to create a place where anyone could make their own image board without express approval from administrators.
While he didn't create 8chan as a specific response to the GamerGate movement, he said 4chan's decision to ban GamerGate content made him realize that the website had changed. "The rules keep getting more and more strict on 4chan even though there is no legal requirement for them to do so," Brennan told Know Your Meme.
Cutting ties with 8chan
Brennan voluntarily left 8chan and ceded control of the site to its current operator, Jim Watkins, in 2015, according to reports from the Journal and the Times. He continued to work for Watkins until December.
Although Brennan only recently called for the site he created to be shut down, he expressed concern over 8chan's link to the mass shooting that occurred in New Zealand several months ago. He told the Journal in March that he believed the site's current administrators were too slow to take down posts from the New Zealand shooter Brenton Tarrant, and said that he has "no desire" to ever be involved in the image board world again.
"It was very difficult in the days that followed to know that I had created that site," Brennan said to the Journal following the New Zealand shooting. "It wouldn't surprise me if this happens again."
A shift in perspective
Brennan's comments about shutting down 8chan appear to be in contrast to his views from 2015, when he spoke with Ars Technica about why anonymity could be beneficial for the internet, among other topics. In that interview, he suggested that closing sites like 8chan and 4chan wouldn't help when it comes to stopping toxic content from spreading.
"If you shut down 4chan, shut down 8chan, you're just pushing it under the rug," he said to Ars Technica. "Underground, it's just gonna get worse."
Now, Brennan has shifted his thinking, telling the Times that shutting down sites like 8chan may stop such attacks from occurring so often.
"Shutting it down, having these chan sites pushed underground, it wouldn't totally stop these kinds of things from happening," he said to the Times. "But it wouldn't happen every few months."
