Mother Jones is calling out a website that thrives on targeting people to get them to kill themselves.
Their cover story in the March/April issue attacks the site Kiwi Farms, which is a message board akin to 4chan or 8chan, but people use the site to plan and coordinate attacks on the lives of people they hope to destroy.
"Their tactics include doxxing, SWATing, defaming, encouraging self-harm, and stalking, online and sometimes off," said Mother Jones. They "harvests anguish. It thrives on pain and revels in death. Users of the innocuously named forum prey on the vulnerable and marginalized—people who are transgender, neurodivergent, disabled, financially struggling—with persistent and twisted harassment campaigns."
Reporters are wary of reporting on it because there's a fear that they would become targets themselves.
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Their Twitter account, which has been taken down, bragged that they are all about “Gossip and exploitation of mentally handicapped for amusement purposes.”
They refer to the victims as "lolcows," because they milk people for their own laughs. They begin by crafting a dossier on the target, some of it is true and some of it is false and then they use it to go after their victim.
"When Chloe Sagal posted about her suicidal thoughts, Kiwi Farms users sent private messages urging her to kill herself," Mother Jones reported, citing a friend. "When posters learned that Julie Terryberry, an 18-year-old with learning disabilities, used the internet to make friends, they worked to get her social media accounts shut down while mocking her mental health struggles."
“I’ve been bullied, ridiculed, and humiliated my entire life,” David Ginder wrote in an online suicide note. “I could only just tolerate it with heavy depression when it was 4chan. But Kiwi Farms has made the harassment orders of magnitude worse.”
When Ginder died, the site celebrated its success. One user encouraged people not to delete their attack threads so that they would get a point on their kill counter. "I only need two more to get a free a (sic) milkshake."
Past reporters have claimed that it's a far-right forum, but that's not entirely true. Mother Jones explained that the members do love Donald Trump and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, but not because they agree with the men. They appreciate their "cringe" factor. But they've also ridiculed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Many of the posters hate women, people of color, queer people and anyone who might be neurodivergent.
Last October, Cloudflare banned the site with the team being forced to craft their own host until they could find someone willing to support the site. The Korean domain and hosting service Epik is now helping prop up the site. They also provide service to 8chan, Gab and the Daily Stormer.
Mother Jones said that Congress could pass stronger laws against online abuse, but there are many elected officials who thrive on abuse who might block such legislation under the guise of "free speech." It's left the forum blinking on and off, the report said. But now the practices have moved beyond the site to other forums where users can gather and coordinate their attacks.
