Kiwi Farms

Kiwi Farms, formerly known as CWCki Forums, is an American Internet forum dedicated to the discussion of online figures and communities it deems "lolcows". The targets of threads are often subject to doxing and other forms of organized group trolling such as ongoing harassment and stalking, including real-life harassment by users.[3]

Kiwi Farms
Type of site
Forum
Available inEnglish, with the exception of the 'Internationale Clique' subforum for non-English discussions
OwnerJoshua 'Null' Moon
URLhttps://kiwifarms.net
Alexa rank 10,101 (Global, April 2019)[1]
CommercialYes[2]
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedFebruary 4, 2013 (2013-02-04)
Current statusOnline

History

The website was originally launched as an exclusive imageboard to troll and harass an autistic transgender webcomic artist, who was first spotted in 2007 on a 4chan video game board for having designed a homemade comic-series called Sonichu (a mashup of the Sonic and Pokémon universes).[3]

Controversies

Suicide of Chloe Sagal

In 2013, video game developer Chloe Sagal became a target of Kiwi Farms after EuroGamer.net reported Sagal's Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign had been flagged for "suspicious activity", having raised over $30,000 for an alleged metal poisoning treatment to remove shrapnel from a car accident and it was found that Sagal had actually intended to use the proceeds for sex reassignment surgery. Sagal later committed suicide by self-immolation on June 19, 2018.[4][5]

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

In 2017, Tumblr user Rose Christo claimed that she was the author of the Harry Potter fan fiction My Immortal and that she had written it in order to locate her missing brother. She also announced that Macmillan Publishers was publishing a memoir about the fan fiction's creation as well as her childhood of abuse and experiences as a Native American in the New York foster care system. A forum thread about Christo was created on Kiwi Farms questioning these claims, and a user claiming to be Christo's brother wrote that Christo's claims of authorship and almost all of her story was false and that their family was white and not Native American.[6][7] Christo then admitted that she had falsified documents supporting her story but maintained that she had written My Immortal.[8] Macmillan Publishers cancelled the publication of her memoir.[9][10]

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 relating to the shooting, including the IP addresses of posters and their emails.[11] Moon responded aggressively, calling New Zealand a "shithole country",[11] and stated that he does not "give a single solitary fuck what section 50 of your faggot law says about sharing your email".[12][13] Kiwi Farms was one of several websites blocked by New Zealand ISPs in the wake of the attack.[14]

Moon's response garnered mixed to negative reception. New Zealand publications that covered the story criticized Moon for his rudeness and unwillingness to cooperate with law enforcement; Newshub called Moon's message "aggressive" and "mocking".[15]

Distributed denial of service attacks

On August 6, 2019, Joshua "Null" Moon announced that Kiwi Farms was down after a DDoS attack which occurred one day following the 2019 El Paso shooting, but users were able to access Kiwi Farms again by 4:00 PM Central Time. Moon stated that, while Kiwi Farms had in-home DDoS protection, he was looking for alternatives to Cloudflare, the security provider for Kiwi Farms.[16]

See also

References
  1. "Kiwifarms.net Traffic, Demographics and Competitors – Alexa". www.alexa.com. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
  2. Moon, Joshua. "Ad discussion". Kiwi Farms. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  3. Pless, Margaret (July 19, 2016). "Kiwi Farms, the Web's Biggest Community of Stalkers". Intelligencer. New York Magazine. Retrieved May 12, 2019.
  4. Katzowitz, Josh (June 25, 2018). "Transgender game developer who'd been bullied online dies by suicide". The Daily Dot. Retrieved May 18, 2019.
  5. Fogel, Stefanie (June 26, 2018). "Video Game Developer Dies After Setting Herself on Fire". Variety. Retrieved May 17, 2019.
  6. Tremeer, Eleanor (October 5, 2017). "The Author Of 'My Immortal' Is A Fake And I Don't Know What To Believe Anymore". Movie Pilot. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  7. "The 'My Immortal' mystery grows: Five new questions after the memoir's cancellation". Hypable. 2017-10-05. Retrieved 2019-08-27.
  8. Lee, Jarry (October 3, 2017). "The "My Immortal" Book Is No Longer Going To Be Published". Buzzfeed. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
  9. Romano, Aja (2017-10-09). "The My Immortal memoir has been canceled, and the mystery of the notorious fanfic deepens". Vox. Retrieved 2019-08-27.
  10. Lai, Catherine (2017-10-05). "Memoir of "My Immortal" Author Canceled amid Accusations of Falsehoods". MuggleNet. Retrieved 2019-08-27.
  11. Bayer, Kurt. "Owner of notorious 8chan internet site in bid to deflect blame for role in Christchurch mosque terror attacks". New Zealand Herald. Retrieved May 7, 2019.
  12. 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.
  13. "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.
  14. https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/19-03-2019/the-online-cesspits-where-hate-found-a-home/
  15. "Kiwi Farms website refuses to help police in Christchurch terror case". Newshub. March 18, 2019.
  16. "Stalking forum Kiwi Farms went down after DDoS attack, owner claims". The Daily Dot. 2019-08-06. Retrieved 2020-01-08.
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