Important to note that, although Watkins owns 8chan, 8chan was originally started by Fredrick Brennan, who, since leaving, opposes 8chan and has been instrumental in continually pressuring hosting providers to boot them, as well as doxxing Q
It’s been years since I’ve paid attention to Chan lore but didn’t 8chan originally spin off as a place for the anonymous people that wanted to keep doing hacktivism versus just trolling people? I remember there being a schism between “for the lulz only” and “internet’s protector” camps
8chan was legit because of gamergate and :freeze-peach:
7chan was either set up right before or right after /b/day which is when 4chan banned the old invasion board (also CP which is the actual reason 7chan got big).
7chan also had its own split after there was that really stupid anti-Scientology campaign that went nowhere, and then that split again because of some early 2010s issue I don’t even remember. Then yeah, gamergate.
I remember someone here speculating that at some point chan moderation was infiltrated by more coordinated white nationalist types, like weev and his friends.