8chan Users Coordinated Antisemitic Zoombombing Campaign - 2020-04-02
8chan Users Coordinated Antisemitic Zoombombing Campaign April 2, 2020,
As workplaces, schools, and places of worship go online due to the coronavirus pandemic, the FBI publicly warned that Zoom calls were being targeted and hijacked, a practice known as "Zoombombing." Now, VICE has found evidence of racist users of the site formerly known as 8chan coordinating an online harassment campaign against a Jewish academy for children in Philadelphia.
The news is yet more evidence of privacy and security concerns lingering around the video-conferencing app, which has exploded in popularity during the Covid-19 crisis, and gives a peek into how the far-right is coordinating a growing attack: Zoombombing Jewish users. It is also further confirmation that 8chan, which has been heavily linked to white supremacism and extremist chatter for years, continues to be a repository of hate speech—even during a time of global pandemic and under a new name, which VICE will not publish in order to avoid further amplification of the site.
A post from Tuesday, on the successor site to 8chan provided links to the Zoom calls of teachers at the Jewish school, with instructions to "really freak them out," and included a reference to the "Boogaloo," which is commonly known among the far-right as a future "race war" in the U.S. One user replied to the original message and made it clear the planned Zoombombing was racially motivated.