Kiwi Farms

Page extended-protected
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Kiwi Farms
Type of site
Forum
Available inEnglish, with an "Internationale Clique" subforum for non-English discussions
OwnerJoshua "Null" Moon
Parent1776 Solutions LLC (previously Final Solutions LLC)[1]
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional (required to participate and view certain content)
Users16,000 daily logins, as of 2022[2]
LaunchedFebruary 4, 2013; 11 years ago (2013-02-04)

Kiwi Farms, formerly known as CWCki Forums (

doxxing and real-life harassment.[3][4][5] These actions have tied Kiwi Farms to the suicides of three people targeted by members of the forum.[15]

Kiwi Farms' connection to several controversies and harassment campaigns has caused the forum to be blocked by

VanwaTech was providing content delivery network
services to the site, which brought it back online.

In September 2022, Kiwi Farms suffered a data breach; the site operator told users to assume that IP addresses, email addresses, and passwords had been leaked.[16][17]

History

Kiwi Farms was founded in 2013 by Joshua Conner Moon (known as "Null" on the website), a former

neurodivergent people, people considered by Kiwi Farms users to be mentally ill or sexually deviant, feminists, journalists, Internet celebrities, and video game or comics hobbyists.[3][4][2]

As of 2022[update], the site had 16,000 daily logins, according to the site's administrators.

anti-trans feminist types to edgy lefties obsessed with consuming internet drama", while noting that "of particular interest to many of the site's users have been trans people, who they have labeled 'troons', a derogatory portmanteau of 'tranny' and 'goon'".[24]

Harassment

The targets of Kiwi Farms threads are often subject to organized group

doxxing"), trying to get them fired from their jobs, reporting crimes at their addresses in an attempt to have police dispatched to their homes ("swatting"), and harassing their family members and friends. Some of Kiwi Farms' harassment campaigns have continued for months or years, and some aim to drive the targets to suicide.[4][30] Both the site's owner Moon and the userbase of Kiwi Farms have been described as antisemitic, with Kiwi Farms users targeting a transgender Jewish convert with antisemitic abuse.[31][32]

death threats.[33][34] She was later swatted, arrested, and detained for over ten hours in August 2022 when someone stole her identity and sent fake emails to local politicians threatening mass violence. She was later cleared of any wrongdoing, and police acknowledged the incident as a swatting attempt. Users also posted the address of an unrelated man who lives in the same city and shares her last name, and police were also sent to his residence. After the swatting incident, Sorrenti said she moved out of her home and into a hotel for her safety.[35][36] After she posted a photograph of her cat on the hotel bed, Kiwi Farms users identified the hotel from the bedsheets in the photograph, and sent multiple pizza orders to the hotel under her deadname. "Obviously, the pizza itself isn't the problem. It's the threat they send by telling me they know where I live and are willing to act on it in the real world," she said in a video after the incident.[35][36][37] Sorrenti later fled the country after her location was identified again, reportedly by someone who hacked her Uber account.[38] The incidents are being investigated as criminal harassment, and Sorrenti stated she intended to pursue legal action.[36][39][40] Sorrenti also promoted a campaign to pressure Cloudflare into terminating its services to the website.[4][41]

On August 24, 2022,

NewsMax that she was swatted twice by an individual claiming to be Kiwi Farms moderator "AltisticRight". She demanded that the website be shut down, saying "There should be no business or any kind of service where you can target your enemy. That's absolutely absurd and this is the type of lawlessness that Democrats want all over the country". Cloudflare suspended a service to the website that allowed them to customize error messages in response.[42][43][6]

Terminations of service

Kiwi Farms used services from Cloudflare, an American hosting and web security services provider. The services include DDoS protection, and distribution through Cloudflare's content delivery network.[44] Following Kiwi Farms' harassment campaign against Sorrenti, in August 2022 a campaign was started to try to convince Cloudflare to stop providing services to the site.[45][46] NBC News claims this was done in order to enable "debilitating virtual attacks" against Kiwi Farms.[47] While Cloudflare initially defended their decision to keep working with Kiwi Farms, on September 3, 2022, Cloudflare officially blocked the site from using its services.[6][48] People attempting to visit the site saw an error message explaining that the decision had been made due to "an imminent and emergency threat to human life".[49][50] Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince stated that the company acted because "the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site and specific, targeted threats [had] escalated over the last 48 hours" at the time of the decision.[50][48] Other middleware providers, such as hCaptcha, followed suit in halting support for Kiwi Farms.[51][52]

Though the site was briefly offline due to Cloudflare's decision,[53] it was back online "intermittently" on September 4, 2022, with the Russian-based service provider DDoS-Guard and a Russian domain that had been registered on July 12, 2021.[14][54][55] NBC analyst and former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi said that by switching to Russian servers, Kiwi Farms "could easily become an increased threat of domestic terror".[51] DDoS-Guard stopped providing services to Kiwi Farms on September 5, 2022, also rendering the site's Russian domain inaccessible.[56][2] The Internet Archive excluded Kiwi Farms from being archived at the Wayback Machine during this time.[57][52]

Moon has since claimed that the takedown of Kiwi Farms was "an organized attack", and that there is "a coalition of criminals trying to frame the forum for their behavior" which provides "opportunities for professional victims to amplify their message". Moon also commented that he did not see a realistic scenario for Kiwi Farms to stay online.

VanwaTech was providing content delivery network services to the site, hence bringing it back online.[59][60] Other websites running on VanwaTech infrastructure experienced availability problems as a result, including The Daily Stormer and 8chan.[61]

Suicides of harassment targets

Harassment campaigns by Kiwi Farms users are known to have contributed to the suicides of at least three individuals.

reporting systems to mass-report posts by harassment targets in which they have expressed suicidal thoughts or intentions, with the goal of reducing the possibility their targets receive help.[22]
: 91 

In 2013, American

sex reassignment surgery. Sagal later died via self-immolation on June 19, 2018,[62][63] which several reports attributed to years of harassment from Kiwi Farms.[5][9][64]

Julie Terryberry, a Canadian woman, died by suicide in 2016 following sustained harassment from Kiwi Farms users.[9][10][12] Following Terryberry's death, Joshua Moon posted a note on the forum claiming that Kiwi Farms and its users had no responsibility for the suicide.[3]

In a

autistic.[5][11][65] On June 28, Hector Martin posted a link to a Google Doc which he said came from a mutual friend of his and Near's, which said that Near had died by suicide, and alleged that the harassment from Kiwi Farms amounted to murder.[11][65][66] Martin subsequently reported on June 28 that he had spoken to police who confirmed that Near had died the previous day.[11][66] USA Today reported on July 23, 2021, that it had confirmed with Near's former employer that they had died.[5]

Defamation lawsuit

In May 2023, developer advocate Liz Fong-Jones brought a defamation case against the Brisbane-based company Flow Chemical and its director, Vincent Zhen. The lawsuit alleged that the company was helping to keep Kiwi Farms, which has doxxed and targeted her and other LGBT people, online. Because Flow Chemical and Zhen did not defend the case, an interlocutory judgment was made against them in July 2023, and in October 2023 they were ordered to pay Fong-Jones $445,000 plus costs.[67]

Other controversies

Christchurch mosque shootings

In March 2019, Kiwi Farms republished both the livestream and the manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. Shortly after, website owner Joshua Moon publicly denied a request by New Zealand Police to voluntarily hand over all data on posts about the shooting, including the email and IP addresses of forum posters.[18] Moon responded aggressively and mockingly, calling New Zealand a "shithole country",[23][18] and stated that he did not "give a single solitary fuck what section 50 of your faggot law says about sharing [the New Zealand Police's] email."[68][69] He deemed the request a censorship attempt and maintained that New Zealand authorities "do not have the clout to eradicate a video from the Internet" and "do not have the legal reach to imprison everyone whose posted it."[23] Kiwi Farms was one of several websites blocked by New Zealand Internet service providers after the attack.[70] In New Zealand, those who were caught possessing or sharing images or videos of the attack faced charges that could result in 14-year prison sentences.[71][72]

My Immortal fan fiction authorship

Main article: My Immortal (fan fiction) § 2017: Rose Christo co-authorship claim

In 2017, Tumblr user and

better source needed] Christo then admitted that she had falsified documents supporting her story, but maintained that she had written My Immortal.[75] Macmillan Publishers canceled the publication of her memoir.[76][77]

References

  1. The Hill. Archived
    from the original on September 15, 2022. Retrieved September 16, 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f "Decoding Kiwi Farms, the blocked Internet bully that continues to be a nuisance". Le Monde. September 5, 2022. Archived from the original on September 5, 2022. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Pless, Margaret (July 19, 2016). "Kiwi Farms, the Web's Biggest Community of Stalkers". Intelligencer. New York Magazine. Archived from the original on May 11, 2019. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d Rosenberg, Scott (August 25, 2022). "Campaign pushes Cloudflare to drop trans hate site". Axios. Archived from the original on August 25, 2022. Retrieved August 25, 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Dastagir, Alia E. (July 23, 2021). "'The internet is not a game. ... This stuff really hurts.' Respected developer who was bullied online dies by suicide". USA Today. Archived from the original on October 1, 2021. Retrieved July 24, 2021.
  6. ^
    ISSN 0190-8286. Archived
    from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 3, 2022.
  7. ^ "Situation eskaliert: Hassplattform Kiwi Farms vom Netz genommen". Der Standard. September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  8. ^ Baj, Lavender (July 13, 2021). "Kiwi Farms Has 14 Days To Find A New Domain Host After Being Booted Off DreamHost". Kotaku Australia. Archived from the original on October 1, 2021. Retrieved July 13, 2021.
  9. ^ a b c Wodinsky, Shashona (June 29, 2021). "The Worst Site on the Web Gets DDoS'd After Being Connected to Prominent Developer's Suicide". Gizmodo. Archived from the original on June 29, 2021. Retrieved June 29, 2021.
  10. ^ a b Wesolowski, Sébastien (May 27, 2020). "Vaches à lol: dans l'Internet qui harcèle pour s'amuser" [Lolcows: Inside the Internet which harasses for fun]. Vice (in French). Archived from the original on October 1, 2021. Retrieved June 30, 2021.
  11. ^ a b c d e Kotaku Staff (June 28, 2021). "The Brilliant SNES Emulator Author Known As Near Has Died". Kotaku. Archived from the original on June 27, 2021. Retrieved June 28, 2021.
  12. ^
    Insider. Archived
    from the original on October 1, 2021. Retrieved August 4, 2021.
  13. The Washington Examiner
    . Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  14. ^
    The Associated Press. September 4, 2022. Archived
    from the original on September 5, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  15. ^ a b [6][7][2][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]
  16. ^ Goodin, Dan (September 19, 2022). "Kiwi Farms has been breached; assume passwords and emails have been leaked". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on September 21, 2022. Retrieved September 21, 2022.
  17. ^ Holt, K. (September 19, 2022). "Kiwi Farms says someone hacked its website". Engadget. Archived from the original on September 21, 2022. Retrieved September 21, 2022.
  18. ^ a b c Bayer, Kurt (April 10, 2019). "Owner of notorious 8chan internet site in bid to deflect blame for role in Christchurch mosque terror attacks". The New Zealand Herald. Archived from the original on May 4, 2019. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
  19. ^ Roth, Emma (September 4, 2022). "Cloudflare blocks Kiwi Farms due to an 'immediate threat to human life'". The Verge. Archived from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  20. ^ Thalen, Mikael (December 7, 2020). "Kiwi Farms says it will shut down if Section 230 is repealed". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on February 26, 2021. Retrieved June 28, 2021.
  21. Insider. Archived
    from the original on March 8, 2023. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  22. ^
    S2CID 229257581
    .
  23. ^ a b c "Kiwi Farms website refuses to help police in Christchurch terror case". Newshub. March 18, 2019. Archived from the original on April 18, 2019. Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  24. ^ Burns, Katelyn (September 10, 2022). "Opinion | Kiwi Farms is still a threat to free speech and safety". MSNBC.com. Archived from the original on September 17, 2022. Retrieved September 17, 2022.
  25. ^ Rosenberg, Scott (August 25, 2022). "Campaign pushes Cloudflare to drop trans hate site". Axios. Archived from the original on August 25, 2022. Retrieved September 17, 2022.
  26. S2CID 252946599. Archived
    from the original on September 20, 2022. Retrieved September 16, 2022.
  27. ^
    S2CID 213629199. Archived
    from the original on February 13, 2023. Retrieved September 16, 2022.
  28. ^ a b "A campaign made it harder to access an anti-trans website linked to multiple suicides". NPR.org. Archived from the original on September 15, 2022. Retrieved September 17, 2022.
  29. ^
    ISBN 978-1-78518-007-1. Archived
    from the original on February 13, 2023. Retrieved March 8, 2023 – via Google Books. Joshua Conner Moon operates a neo-Nazi white supremacist hate group and cyberbullying website that targets disabled people, especially people with autism, Jews, Muslims, black people, Hispanics, transgendered, vulnerable people...
  30. ^ "Harcèlement : l'hébergeur Cloudflare bloque finalement le forum « Kiwi Farms »" [Harassment: Host Cloudflare finally blocks the "Kiwi Farms" forum]. Le Monde (in French). September 4, 2022. Archived from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  31. S2CID 213512285. Archived
    from the original on September 20, 2022. Retrieved September 16, 2022.
  32. ^ Nachimson, Sarah (September 13, 2022). "This trolling website targeted transgender people, Jews and the disabled. Here's how it fell". The Forward. Archived from the original on September 20, 2022. Retrieved September 18, 2022.
  33. ^ Dress, Brad (September 4, 2022). "Web security firm Cloudflare drops anti-trans website over 'threat to human life'". The Hill. Archived from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  34. RNZ. September 3, 2022. Archived
    from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  35. ^ a b Carruthers, Dale (August 18, 2022). "Police sent to Toronto home of man with same last name as London trans activist". The London Free Press. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
  36. ^ a b c Bardhan, Ashley (August 19, 2022). "Trans Twitch Streamer Keffals Now 'In Hiding' After Second Dox Attack". Kotaku Australia. Archived from the original on August 23, 2022. Retrieved August 23, 2022.
  37. ^ Khan, Ahmar (August 17, 2022). "Twitch streamer and trans woman, Clara Sorrenti allegedly doxxed again". Global News. Archived from the original on August 18, 2022. Retrieved August 18, 2022.
  38. ^ Simon, Amy; Khan, Ahmar (August 23, 2022). "Doxxed Twitch streamer and transgender activist leaving Canada amid ongoing harassment". Global News. Archived from the original on August 24, 2022. Retrieved August 25, 2022.
  39. ^ Cohen, Rebecca (August 19, 2022). "Popular gaming streamer Keffals said she had to go into hiding over a months-long campaign of doxxing threats: 'I never plan to back down'". Insider. Insider Inc. Archived from the original on August 22, 2022. Retrieved August 19, 2022.
  40. ^ Zandbergen, Rebecca; McInnes, Angela (August 23, 2022). "Twitch streamer and trans activist says she's leaving Canada for awhile due to harassment". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on August 23, 2022. Retrieved August 23, 2022.
  41. ^ O'Sullivan, Donie; Naik, Richa (September 6, 2022). "Trans activist celebrates rare victory against online trolls after Kiwi Farms deplatforming". CNN. Archived from the original on September 6, 2022. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
  42. ^ Mikkelsen, Emily (August 25, 2022). "What is KiwiFarms? Site blamed for Marjorie Taylor Greene 'swatting' has body count". WGHP. Nexstar Media Group. Archived from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  43. ^ Zitser, Joshua (August 25, 2022). "How the 'swatting' site Kiwi Farms has created a bizarre alliance between MAGA's Marjorie Taylor Greene and transgender activists". Business Insider. Archived from the original on September 1, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  44. ^ Newton, Casey (September 6, 2022). "How Cloudflare got Kiwi Farms wrong". The Verge. Archived from the original on September 7, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  45. ^ Goforth, Claire (August 22, 2022). "Pressure grows on Cloudflare to drop Kiwi Farms after latest doxing campaign". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on August 22, 2022. Retrieved August 23, 2022.
  46. ^ Cole, Samantha (August 23, 2022). "People Are Demanding That Cloudflare Drop Kiwi Farms". Motherboard. Vice. Archived from the original on August 23, 2022. Retrieved August 23, 2022.
  47. ^ Collins, Ben; Tenbarge, Kat (September 2, 2022). "Anti-trans stalkers at Kiwi Farms are chasing one victim around the world. Their list of targets is growing". NBC News. Archived from the original on September 6, 2022. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  48. ^ a b Feldman, Kate (September 4, 2022). "Cloudflare blocks internet forum Kiwi Farms over harassment of trans people – 'An unprecedented emergency and immediate threat to human life'". New York Daily News. Archived from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  49. ^ Collins, Ben (September 3, 2022). "Internet services company Cloudflare blocks Kiwi Farms citing targeted threats". NBC News. Archived from the original on September 3, 2022. Retrieved September 3, 2022.
  50. ^ a b Alspach, Kyle (September 3, 2022). "Cloudflare has blocked Kiwi Farms due to 'escalated' threats". Protocol. Capitol News Company. Archived from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 3, 2022.
  51. ^ a b Plunkett, Luke (September 4, 2022). "Hate Forum Kiwi Farms Flees To Russian Servers After Cloudflare Takes Site Offline". Kotaku. Archived from the original on September 5, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  52. ^ a b Farokhmanesh, Megan (September 8, 2022). "The End of Kiwi Farms, the Web's Most Notorious Stalker Site". Wired. Archived from the original on September 8, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  53. ^ O'Sullivan, Donie (September 4, 2022). "US internet service company blocks controversial online forum citing 'imminent threats to human life'". CNN. Archived from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  54. ^ Bonifacic, Igor (September 4, 2022). "Cloudflare blocks trans harassment forum Kiwi Farms following escalation of 'targeted threats'". Engadget. Archived from the original on September 4, 2022. Retrieved September 4, 2022.
  55. ^ "Notorious Website Kiwi Farms Loses Its Domain Registrar". www.vice.com. July 13, 2021. Archived from the original on October 1, 2021. Retrieved July 14, 2021. Domain registrar DreamHost has given the notorious website Kiwi Farms 14 days to find a new registrar. According to the site's creator, Joshua "Null" Moon, Kiwi Farms has already moved to a Russian registrar and he's trying to secure another U.S. backup.
  56. ^ "Российская компания DDoS-Guard прекратила обслуживать форум Kiwi Farms" [The Russian company DDoS-Guard stopped servicing the Kiwi Farms forum]. Kommersant (in Russian). September 5, 2022. Archived from the original on September 5, 2022. Retrieved September 5, 2022.
  57. ^ Robertson, Adi (September 7, 2022). "Kiwi Farms has been scrubbed from the Internet Archive". The Verge. Archived from the original on September 8, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2022.
  58. ^ "Hate Forum Kiwi Farms Practically Dead As Owner Posts Conspiracy-Laden Rant". Kotaku. September 5, 2022. Archived from the original on September 5, 2022. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  59. ^ Goforth, Claire (September 6, 2022). "Kiwi Farms gets back online thanks to the same service that's kept 8kun alive". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on September 6, 2022. Retrieved September 6, 2022.
  60. ^ "Hate-filled Kiwi Farms message board finds new home with Southwest Washington tech company". Oregon Public Broadcasting. Archived from the original on September 6, 2022. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
  61. ^ Gilbert, David (September 9, 2022). "QAnon's Jim Watkins Tried to Save Kiwi Farms. Now His Site 8Kun Is Down". Vice. Archived from the original on September 21, 2022. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  62. ^ Katzowitz, Josh (June 25, 2018). "Transgender game developer who'd been bullied online dies by suicide". The Daily Dot. Archived from the original on May 18, 2019. Retrieved May 18, 2019.
  63. ^ Fogel, Stefanie (June 26, 2018). "Video Game Developer Dies After Setting Herself on Fire". Variety. Archived from the original on June 8, 2019. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
  64. ^ Morgan, Joe (June 29, 2018). "Bullied trans game developer dies after setting herself on fire". Gay Star News. Archived from the original on November 11, 2020. Retrieved June 29, 2021.
  65. ^ a b c Klepek, Patrick (June 29, 2021). "What I Learned From Near, an Emulation Legend and Real Person". Vice News. Archived from the original on June 29, 2021. Retrieved June 29, 2021.
  66. ^ a b Macgregor, Jody (June 28, 2021). "Near, creator of the higan and bsnes emulators, has died". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on June 30, 2021. Retrieved June 28, 2021.
  67. ^ Bogel, Ariel (October 22, 2023). "Defamation in the internet age: could a $400,000 Australian court ruling silence the notorious online forum Kiwi Farms?". The Guardian. Retrieved October 22, 2023.
  68. ^ O'Neill, Marnie (March 19, 2019). "Website Kiwi Farms refuses to surrender data linked to accused Christchurch terrorist Brendan Tarrant". news.com.au. Archived from the original on March 18, 2019. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  69. ^ "Christchurch mosque shootings: Website Kiwi Farms refuses to surrender data linked to accused". The New Zealand Herald. Archived from the original on March 18, 2019. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  70. ^ Rowe, Dan (March 19, 2019). "The online cesspits where hate found a home". The Spinoff. Archived from the original on January 22, 2021. Retrieved June 27, 2021.
  71. ^ Onyanga-Omara, Jane. "New Zealand mosque shootings: Six in court on charges they sent attack images". USA Today. Archived from the original on October 21, 2020. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  72. ^ "Six Charged in New Zealand for Sharing Mosque Shooting Video Online". Rolling Stone. April 15, 2019. Archived from the original on October 22, 2020. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  73. ^ Tremeer, Eleanor (October 5, 2017). "The Author Of 'My Immortal' Is A Fake And I Don't Know What To Believe Anymore". Movie Pilot. Archived from the original on October 5, 2017.
  74. ^ "The 'My Immortal' mystery grows: Five new questions after the memoir's cancellation". Hypable. October 5, 2017. Archived from the original on June 28, 2021. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  75. ^ Lee, Jarry (October 3, 2017). "The "My Immortal" Book Is No Longer Going To Be Published". BuzzFeed. Archived from the original on October 5, 2017. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  76. ^ Romano, Aja (October 9, 2017). "The My Immortal memoir has been canceled, and the mystery of the notorious fanfic deepens". Vox. Archived from the original on August 27, 2019. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  77. ^ Lai, Catherine (October 5, 2017). "Memoir of "My Immortal" Author Canceled amid Accusations of Falsehoods". MuggleNet. Archived from the original on August 27, 2019. Retrieved August 27, 2019.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kiwi_Farms&oldid=1219659685"