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8Chan Dropped From Web Hosting Firm Epik

The Seattle-based company said it had reversed course due to the “elevated possibility of violent radicalization on the platform.”

Another web-hosting platform has dropped 8chan, the controversial web forum linked to three mass shootings in the past six months including a shooting in El Paso that left 22 dead. Seattle-based Epik hosted 8chan for a few hours Monday morning, shortly after the website lost Cloudflare protection Sunday, but the company reversed course on Tuesday. Epik said in a statement that it decided to no longer provide content delivery services due to “the concern of inadequate enforcement and the elevated possibility of violent radicalization on the platform.” Epik and its subsidiary, BitMitigate, have hosted controversial websites in the past, The Seattle Times reports. Epik stepped in last November when Gab.com lost its previous web hosting service after a man preparing to attack a Pittsburgh synagogue used the website to post anti-Semitic content. In 2017, BitMitigate also sold hosting services to The Daily Stormer after the website was de-platformed for supporting the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville.