I first became aware of the Kiwi Farms board when I was looking into the Jessica/Jonathan Yaniv case that was going on in Canada. KF were exposing Yaniv before many others did for fear of breaching a gagging order imposed by Yaniv and the Canadian courts. For those who do not know, Yaniv claims that he is transgender but does not appear to have had any surgery or medical treatment to change his status. Yaniv was shaking down women only intimate waxing salons by suing them when they refused to wax his scrotum. He has also been described by conservative transgender commentators such as Blaire White as a ‘predator’ because of Yaniv’s odd and quite frankly disturbing obsession with pubescent girls and with menstruation.

What I found on Kiwi Farms was what at first looked like an edgelord free speech fundamentalist board, where people could say what they wanted without fear of being banned for being ‘racist’ or ‘Islamophobic’ or whatever. As a bit of a free speech fundamentalist myself, I believe that there should be very few restrictions on what people can say whether in private or in public. My guide is the US First Amendment to the Constitution which only really restricts credible and immediate threats to kill or to destroy and things that any reasonable person would want restricted, such as indecent images of children. Even with these restrictions to the First Amendment, Americans have far more freedom of speech than for example Britons have.

But I’ve discovered that Kiwi Farms has a dark underbelly and there have been allegations made that stuff that go beyond what should be classed as free speech is being hosted there.
These allegations concern not only real world physical attempts to intimidate the MP Jess Phillips but also that Kiwi Farms is hosting illegal images or pseudo-images of children. These allegations are not only aimed at Kiwi Farms but also at 9Chan, a site that is said to be a sister site of Kiwi Farms.

Now I dislike Jess Phillips and I dislike her politics and believe that it is an inalienable right to mock and criticise her and any other public figure. But for someone to attempt to break into her home goes right beyond the pale of acceptability. It’s a black and white issue for me. Take the piss out of public figures all you want, meme them and mock them, but on no account should these people be physically harassed and especially not physically harassed at their home, as is alleged by the blog Witchfinder General is claiming has happened.

Witchfinder General said:

Last month Kiwi Farms owner Joshua Conner Moon set up an image board site called 9chan. Moon was previously dismissed from notorious image board 8chan (now 8kun.top) over a botched attempt to upgrade their software and inappropriate conduct in relation to the site’s child pornography forums. Within 2 days of setting up 9chan, Moon was boasting on Twitter (archive) of featuring in an article on Vice.com because of the site’s involvement in cyber attacks on the World Health Organisation. Now, 9chan has a board for stalking and demeaning female legislators all over the world with fake nudes and rape stories often involving their children. This week members have taken credit for an attempt to break into the home of Jess Phillips MP. The 9chan site also expressly allows certain types of illegal child exploitation material in its terms.

Like many British politicians, Jess Phillips MP doubtless receives a lot of indefensible hate mail. From her comments in a public interview in the Birmingham Mail (archive) however she is not familiar with the nightmarish Kiwi Farms group and the fact that it has been linked to horrific real world attacks on children and has members in the United Kingdom willing to participate in real world harassment. The threat is far worse than, “It’s just the usual dark web online nonsense” or, “just in-cell [sic] group in America or something”.

Kiwi Farms and 9chan are home to a world-wide cadre of individuals too extreme and despicable for mainstream neo-Nazi or hate sites. Joshua Moon himself was the only person ever banned from wannabe Nazi payment site Hatreon. The Hatreon site itself was later shut down by the card networks. The owner of Hatreon Cody Wilson was actually later convicted of causing “injury” to a minor he had allegedly paid for sex, after pleading guilty (archive). However, even he found Moon’s disturbing paedophile rug-rat snuff rape fantasies intolerable.

I’ve no time for neo-Nazis whatsoever, but believe that if they are to be defeated the best way is let their bad ideas be aired so that they can be defeated in a logical and open debate. However Joshua Moon looks to me to be seriously dodgy. I mean, how bad and sick does a person have to be to be banned from a neo-Nazi payment site?

Despite the good work that Kiwi Farms did in helping to expose Yaniv prior to the lifting of the Canadian gagging order, I believe that KF / 9Chan has crossed the line big time with both the sort of images that they allow on their boards and the alleged links between the attempted break in at Jess Phillips home and other examples of real world nastiness that users of this board are said to have been involved in. I will not use what is a morally challenged site like Kiwi Farms / 9Chan as a source and I’d advise others who wish to have clean hands to do the same. The Witchfinder General site seems to have done some seriously good journalistic investigation into KF/9Chan and what they’ve turned up quite frankly turns my stomach.

Witchfinder General continued

Kiwi Farms members have been involved in attacks on children in multiple countries. On 7 December 2017 William Atchison walked into his old school in Aztec, New Mexico and opened fire. He succeeded in killing two minors before taking his own life. Media reported he was a member of various extremist sites including Kiwi Farms but MHN exclusively discovered that Atchison had spoken personally to Joshua Moon about school shootings only three days before he committed his murder-suicide.

I cannot emphasise enough just how worrying this sort of thing is. There’s no indication that Moon attempted to dissuade this school shooter to not carry out any attacks which is leaving me to draw some uncomfortable and hopefully incorrect conclusions.

There’s worse to come when it comes to allegations about Kiwi Farms/9Chan.

Witchfinder General added

Meanwhile, an analysis of 9chan rules reveals that Moon intends to allow a particularly disturbing form of child pornography, Japanese style cartoon child rape (also known as Loli or Shota depending on whether it features female children or male). The so-called ‘Terms of Service’ of 9chan state that “simulated child pornography” will be allowed provided it falls within an exception for, “artistic pursuits”. It is doubtless a mere coincidence that this includes the genre of child pornography that Mr Moon has publicly boasted of liking, ‘Neko Shota’ .

This also shows that Kiwi Farms /9Chan has gone beyond, far beyond, what could be considered as freedom of speech. The allowance by KF/9Chan of Loli and Shota on their boards is, as Witchfinder General says, does not come under the First Amendment and would be considered as illegal under US law. It should be noted here that other explicitly free speech sites such as Gab do not allow the sort of stuff that is being allowed on KF/9Chan. Gab management say of their restrictions on this type of material and gab.com ban stuff that is:

For the purpose of exploiting, harming, or attempting to exploit or harm minors in any way by exposing them to inappropriate content, asking for personally identifiable information, or otherwise.

Personally I believe that the sort of stuff that KF/9Chan are allegedly allowing does create an environment in which minors could be harmed or exploited. Yes, KF do mock some eminently mockable ‘LOLcows’ but there are other places that do a similar job but without the general awfulness and child exploitation and real world violence that KF / 9Chan are alleged to be linked to. If I was you I’d leave this place alone, it is really not good.