The Worst Site on the Web Gets DDoS’d After Being Connected to Prominent Developer’s Suicide

Illustration for article titled The Worst Site on the Web Gets DDoS'd After Being Connected to Prominent Developer’s Suicide

Graphic: Shoshana Wodinsky (KiwiFarms)

Kiwi Farms—a web based discussion board finest recognized for harboring stalkers, white supremacists, and general being one among the worst cesspits the web has to supply—was knocked offline quickly on Tuesday in what the location’s operators referred to as a paid-for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) assault. The alleged assault comes after the location was implicated within the recent suicide of Near, a beloved developer within the emulator group.

In the final Twitter thread they posted earlier than their dying, Near—who additionally glided by Byuu, and recognized as nonbinary—publicly referred to as out Kiwi Farms for making their lifelong expertise with on-line harassment and bullying “orders of magnitude worse.”

“It’s escalated from attacking me for being autistic, to attacking and doxing my friends, and trying to suicide bait another, just to get a reaction from me,” they wrote. “The internet is not a game. It’s real life. I’m a real person. This stuff really hurts.”

Early the next morning, the safety marketing consultant (and part-time hacker) Hector “Marcan” Martin shared a heartbreaking Google document stated to be written by an in depth pal of Near’s that defined among the extra specific particulars of Near’s dying. In it, the nameless pal additionally calls out Kiwi Farms, noting that the location made “a sport” out of “preying on the less fortunate, on those in positions liable to being emotionally abused.” The letter additionally referred to as out DreamHost and CloudFlare—the location’s area registrar and net community safety supplier—for sharing duty in driving their pal to suicide. (Gizmodo has reached out to each corporations, and can replace this submit once we obtain a response.)

Because that is Kiwi Farms we’re speaking about, the location’s operators selected to see the state of affairs otherwise. During its downtime, the location splashed a lengthy rebuttal to the nameless letter and Near’s thread on its touchdown web page, saying that “no evidence” of any harassment in the direction of this particular person exists. But once more, that is Kiwi Farms, a web site whose poisonous group very publicly drove Portland-based sport developer Chloe Sagal to kill herself again in 2018. In 2016, a Canadian girl, Julie Terryberry, ended her life after being focused by the location. So, yeah. If Near, and Near’s shut associates and confidants say that the harassment on Kiwi Farms is what in the end drove them over the sting, it’s value assuming they’re telling the reality.

While Kiwi Farms appears to have come again on-line by Tuesday afternoon, the location’s homepage notes that “service will continue to be disrupted,” till the location’s operators “can contact other providers and arrange a fix.” Hopefully that repair received’t be coming for some time.

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline within the U.S. is on the market 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255. An inventory of worldwide suicide hotlines might be discovered here.


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