Kiwi Farms, the Infamous Alt-Right Hate Forum, Might Be off the Clearnet for Good - LowEndBox (2024)

Kiwi Farms is quite possibly the most controversial website to date.

It was founded in 2013 by Joshua Moon, alternatively known as “Null” after he was kicked off the moderation team of another infamous site, 8Chan.

Originally centered around trolling popular internet figure “Chris Chan” or Christine Chandler, which is a giant internet rabbit hole that I’m not going to get into for the sake of time…

You could say the site has evolved over time, too. It’s definitely no longer just centered around Chris Chan.

They describe themselves as:

“A community dedicated to discussing eccentric people.”

On the other hand…

Wikipedia describes Kiwi Farms as:

Kiwi Farms was originally called “CWCki Forums” before “Kiwi Farms” was coined in 2014. It now hosts threads targeting many individuals, including minorities, women, LGBT people, neurodivergent people, people considered by Kiwi Farms users to be mentally ill or sexually deviant, feminists, journalists, internet celebrities, video game or comics hobbyists.

If you ask me?

It’s basically a site centered around negatively targeting individuals.

Which if done in a bubble on a small scale is not so bad.

Nobody is really listening, but… when you’ve grown big enough you’re causing targeted harassment to the extent these victims are committing suicide… that’s a problem.

People started to notice pretty quickly what Kiwi Farms was all about, too…

Remember The Christchurch Shooting?

Brendan Tarrant, the Christchurch shooter frequented all of the normal alt-right centered sites, Kiwi Farms included.

The mass shooting video ended up being shared on the site itself.

That leads to the New Zealand police taking notice and reaching out to Joshua:

After the fact, Joshua Moon made it a point to keep the actual shooting video and manifesto on the site itself.

It’s one thing to have a user on your forum that’s deranged and mentally ill enough to conduct a mass shooting, it’s another to essentially promote the behavior.

His reply to that detective, by the way, was:

Is this a joke? I’m not turning over information about my users. The person responsible for posting the video and manifesto PDF is myself.

I feel real bad for you guys, you’ve got a quiet nation and now this attack is going to be the first thing people think of for the next 10 years when they hear the name New Zealand, but you can’t do this. Tell your superiors they’re going to make the entire country and its government look like clowns by trying to censor the Internet. You’re a small, irrelevant island nation barely more recognizable than any other nameless pacific sovereignty. You do not have the clout to eradicate a video from the Internet and you do not have the legal reach to imprison everyone whose posted it. If anyone turns over to you the information they’re asking for they’re not only cowards, but they’re f*cking idiots.

My name is Joshua Moon, I’m a US Citizen living overseas. My company is contained within a Florida company. If you need an address to send physical documents to this works.

Lolcow LLC
913 Beal Pkwy NW
Suite A-1017
Fort Walton Beach, FL 32547

If you’re wondering, no. Kiwi Farms has nothing to do with New Zealand. Our name is a pointed jab at some of the mushmouthed autistic people we make fun of. Absolutely nothing about our community is NZ oriented.

And I don’t give a single solitary f*ck what section 50 of your fa*ggot law say about sharing your email. f*ck you and f*ck your sh*thole country.

– Josh

That right there is a perfect example of the type of community Joshua Moon is intentionally building.

Which leads me to my next point:

The Founder of 8Chan’s Take on Joshua Moon

Frederick Brennan is actively a software developer, formerly the founder of 8Chan, and unlike most founders… he wasn’t proud of his creation.

Kiwi Farms is essentially a fork of 8Chan, Frederick’s creation.

Nowadays Frederick is against pretty much everything 8Chan and Kiwi Farms alike stands for, a lot of hate speech.

Recently, he did an interview with Timewhere he discusses how we need to build a safer internet, specifically talking about Joshua Moon and Kiwi Farms.

This was happening at a time where Kiwi Farms was very publicly just taken down by CloudFlare as a PR statement.

When asked “were you surprised Kiwi Farms was taken down by CloudFlare?”, this was Fredericks reply:

No, not really, especially because of who they targeted. I’m not surprised at all. I saw it as inevitable. Josh constantly makes errors like this. He is uncompromising when it comes to people that he hates. Clearly, he hates trans people, and has gone on record as believing slander against one of them.

A logical operator in his position would have just not wanted to get into this battle, and I think he wrongly assumed that Cloudflare would stay behind him. I think his ideology is what causes him to be unable to see what is going to happen.

Josh on the other had had a different opinion on CloudFlare…

Since I’ve given you two different perspectives on CloudFlare kicking off Kiwi Farms, I might as well add in CloudFlare’s own response:

Kiwifarms has frequently been host to revolting content. Revolting content alone does not create an emergency situation that necessitates the action we are taking today. Beginning approximately two weeks ago, a pressure campaign started with the goal to deplatform Kiwifarms. That pressure campaign targeted Cloudflare as well as other providers utilized by the site.

Cloudflare provided security services to Kiwifarms, protecting them from DDoS and other cyberattacks. We have never been their hosting provider.As we outlined last Wednesday, we do not believe that terminating security services is appropriate, even to revolting content. In a law-respecting world, the answer to even illegal content is not to use other illegal means like DDoS attacks to silence it.

We are also not taking this action directly because of the pressure campaign. While we have empathy for its organizers, we are committed as a security provider to protecting our customers even when they run deeply afoul of popular opinion or even our own morals. Thepolicy we articulated last Wednesday remains our policy. We continue to believe that the best way to relegate cyberattacks to the dustbin of history is to give everyone the tools to prevent them.

However, as the pressure campaign escalated, so did the rhetoric on the Kiwifarms site. Feeling attacked, users of Kiwifarms became even more aggressive. Over the last two weeks, we have proactively reached out to law enforcement in multiple jurisdictions highlighting what we believe are potential criminal acts and imminent threats to human life that were posted to the site.

Outside of CloudFlare, you can add the following brands to the list of providers that have booted Kiwi Farms in some shape or form:

• GTT
• Lumen/CenturyLink/Level3
• Zayo
• Voxility
• Path.net
• WorldStream
• ColoCrossing
• Vantage
• DDoS Guard
• DiamWall
• Koddos
• CloudDNS
• BuyVM
• Incognet
• Linode
• DigitalOcean
• TransIP
• vShield
• Gandi
• HE

That’s a big list. Some of those guys having a major influence on how the internet operates.

Ever since the Christchurch shooting occurred, the level of heat on Kiwi Farms has only risen.

Particularly, when Kiwi Farms started conducting targeted harassment of the LGBTQ+ community on a pretty big scale…

The vast majority of hosting companies will only protect you to a certain extent.

Once you have major media companies publicly calling you out and your share price starts dropping?

Yeah, those companies probably won’t protect you for too long.

That being said…

It’s Safe To Say Kiwi Farms Was No Stranger to Being De-Platformed

In the interview mentioned above, 8Chan founder Frederick points out that Kiwi Farms is getting de-platformed almost entirely by “vigilante justice” — meaning these groups of individuals are simply bringing enough attention and heat to Kiwi Farms that these companies are taking action (taking Kiwi Farms down) to avoid PR situations.

Alternatively one could call this “cancel culture,” from Twitter accounts like these:

Joshua Moon, owner of Kiwifarms admitting he ran a site where he allowed child p*rn because of his libertarian concept'. He created a platform for pedophiles to share child rape stories.

Full Conversation: https://t.co/Q7vfyq5b2b
More Kiwifarms Info: https://t.co/pk9tIvWlZr pic.twitter.com/SwCXLc9yhQ

— DropKiwifarms (@DropKiwifarms) December 28, 2022

When asked if there was a better way to handle that rather than just “vigilante justice,” Frederick replied:

I don’t know that there’s a good way. But I do think that we are going to see kind of a new system emerge. I first started to think about it after the Christchurch shooting, when the nations of Australia, New Zealand, and some European countries blocked not only the Kiwi Farms, but 8kun, the 8chan website where the shooter posted their manifesto. It’s basically based on a concept of cyber sovereignty.

There’s becoming a change in norms internationally, where politicians are fed up with the United States and its total lack of action. The internet most likely will become a lot more fractured. And the websites that you are able to access will depend more and more on the nation that you are in.

In terms of finding an immediate solution to hate speech based sites, Frederick continued:

I think that what we should be doing is what I do, which is mostly focusing on the administrators and whether or not they operate in good faith or bad faith. That’s mostly why I don’t tend to make it a speech issue most of the time—like an issue about the content, per se. I tend to make it an issue about what the administrators are thinking, why they allow certain content, what their processes are like. And when it comes to the Kiwi Farms, their processes are terrible, and they have done things that are literally extortion.

There needs to be, I think, stricter enforcement against what administrators do. But there also needs to be regulation. The same way that we have an FDA that monitors food and drugs and an SEC that monitors securities, you need a regulatory agency just for social media companies. And by the way, image boards like Kiwi Farms and 4chan are as much an IT company that this regulatory authority could take action against as Facebook.

I’d like to see if that helps at all, before we change fundamental things about freedom of speech.

So, in other words…

From someone extremely experienced in the realm of running anonymous sites similar to Kiwi Farms…

Administrators need to operate in good faith. They need to do things that are inherently good.

He’s putting most of the blame on the moderation of the administrators of these sites.

In the Case of Kiwi Farms, That Mean’s He’s Putting the Blame on Joshua Moon

It was shown in the case of the Christchurch shooting, Joshua Moon actively engages in the behavior the majority of his community do.

He’s promoting that behavior… it’s not like the community suddenly got out of control.

It was a site designed to be about spreading hate speech.

Case in point:

Kiwi Farms was previously incorporated in Florida as Lolcow, LLC. That same LLC has been sued multiple times (Josh publishes it):

The lawsuits I’m specifically referencing are the ones that mention Melinda Scott.

Melinda was a victim of a user on Kiwi Forums that was publicly stalking her.

Joshua Moon, or “Null” received notice of a lawsuit in regards to threads posted about her:

It’s not his fault necessarily for having a deranged user on his site, sure.

You could make that argument, despite the fact the threads were publicly visible, therefore, visible to moderators as well.

But… it becomes hard to make that argument when that user is still active to this day on his site:

It just goes to show the type of content that is encouraged by Joshua Moon himself.

If you’re made aware of a user publicly stalking someone on your website, you should probably do something about it, instead of fuel the fire.

Lolcows, by the way (which is what Josh’s LLC was previously named after), are the name of people the Kiwi Farms community make fun of and harass.

Some of these people are not necessarily good people and you could argue deserve it.

Some on the other hand are pretty innocent, in some cases even mentally handicapped.

The entire site is centered around Lolcows.

That’s the premise: making fun of people, by design.

It’s an incubator for hate speech with almost no moderation.

On that note…

The good news for the vigilantes mentioned above that want Kiwi Farms down is…. they kind of succeeded.

Kiwi Farms Has Been off the Clearnet for Two Months Now

That’s a pretty long time.

After going through a plethora of hosting companies and domain names, for the last two months Kiwi Farms has remained entirely on Tor — something that isn’t new to the Kiwi Farms community:

They’ve had a .onion address since 2017, but previously they made it a point to always have a clearnet public facing website.

It seems to a certain extent Joshua Moon is starting to run out of ammo after being kicked off nearly every provider possible. Even in foreign countries like Russia.

They use a combination of hosts at any given time, right now according to Josh’s ASN, 397702 — they seem to rely on a Ukranian host, Virtual Systems and Sollutium, an almost faceless company.

Update 7/3/23: After posting this article originally on 6/27/23 (two months of downtime off the clearnet)…

Josh registered a new burner domain, “sneed.today” on 6/30/23. It actively resolves Kiwi Farms content on the clearnet and is hosted at TerraHost in Amsterdam, using GTT/Level3 for transit:

It also wasn’t until I looked up Josh’s ASN that I realized his previous company, Lolcow, LLC in Florida mentioned above is no longer active.

In fact, he’s been through quite a few companies:

1. Lolcow, LLC in Florida. Dissolved 2016.
2. Lolcow, LLC in Wyoming. Dissolved 2023.
3. 1776 Solutions, LLC in Wyoming. Active, and owns the ASN above.

When I reached out to Josh for comment, here’s what he said:

“Every single upstream of Terrahost blacklisted my ASN,” Josh said directly to me via email.

So, does that mean the new domain is simply a ticking timebomb until noticed by upstreams?

I’m unsure, regardless:

I sent him an email back pointing out that his LLC in Wyoming was definitely dissolved…

And here’s what he replied back:

Despite the fact Lolcow, LLC is still listed on Kiwi Farms itself:

By the way, his new burner domain is still registered through that invalid LLC:

While Kiwi Farms is kind ofback on the clearnet again with a temporary burner… it’s only a matter of time before it gets taken down again.

So, Josh remains stuck maneuvering and hopping host-to-host, all in an attempt to keep the site online.

(Fun fact: Joshua Moon once asked for a host on LowEndTalk. You can read about that episode here. –raindog308)

Is It Bad Kiwi Farms Is Being De-Platformed?

Hard to say. On one hand…

The site produces some awful, awful content, stalkers, radicalized individuals, and has directly contributed to people committing suicide…

On the other hand, I know entirely normal people who support the site because they support free speech.

Which I get. Free speech is very important, a fundamental right as an American (which Kiwi Farms, this site, and I all am.)

But at what point do you draw the line between free speech and hate speech?

Free speech is about the people, as a collective, being free. No control over media, no censorship, and beyond.

It’s supposed to be about the good of the people. Not the bad.

Intentionally spreading hate speech towards targeted individuals is inherently bad no matter how you look at it.

It’s entirely up to Joshua Moon to decide how he wants to draw that line and moderate it, but he choses to simply not draw that line at all. That’s where the issues come from.

You could make the argument laws should exist to enforce hate speech on the internet like Frederick was suggesting earlier, but…

That comes down entirely to perspective, too.

You have to be careful when you start making laws to censor speech because as we’ve seen time and time again in the past opening the door to a tiny bit of censorship can quickly turn into widescale censorship beyond the original intentions, which, of course… is bad for the people.

I guess only time will tell how the Kiwi Farms story will play out.

Maybe they’ll remain on Tor for years and never change, or… maybe Joshua Moon has a change of heart like Frederick.

Who knows?

One thing is for sure, though…

Kiwi Farms is a self-admitted cesspool.

7/13/23 Update:

KiwiFarms / Sneed.today ran for a while on TerraHost until TerraHosts upstreams booted it off.

As it stands, TerraHost has been removed from Josh’s ASN as well.

They then switched to a seemingly random host that goes by the name Aggros Operations (ASN) temporarily only for the upstream, Tube-Hosting, to find out KiwiFarms was being hosted on their network and removing KiwiFarms.

Tube-Hosting replied the following over on LowEndTalk:

Just registered here to clarify some things in this post.

First of all, I would like to say that under no circ*mstances are we going to allow hosting of such websites in our network. I can confirm that the mentioned IP 84.54.51.78, which belongs to a downstream customer, is not in use right now. We have also informed the downstream customer about this report.

Also, we haven’t received any abuse messages about this and only found out about it after someone sent us the link to this Lowendtalk thread. In the future, please send such things to us as Abuse mail:abuse@as49581.net

They almost immediately removed them after posting that, and Sneed.today was without a host once again.

Recently, they seem to have resurfaced (still in the Netherlands) under ColocationX, also known as HostSlick (AS208046):

We’ll see how long this host lasts.

Update 7/15/23:HostSlick lasted less than 2 days. Sneed.today now seems to be on Host Baltic and Hosteam.

Also, Liz Fong-Jones shared the article on her LinkedIn.

Update 7/28/23:

Sneed.today is down entirely with no DNS records, at all.

With Joshua Moon stating:

Confirmed: Donuts (identity.digital), a very large company that owns many of the novel gTLDs that have come out in the last few years, has seized sneed.today, our top-secret mirror URL.

Here’s Donuts response:

“This domain was recently reported for PII exposure. Our review has concluded the presence of repeated and clear instances of the disclosure of personal data relating to individuals, which have been posted in a manner which either directly or contextually, pose a credible threat of harm to those identified individuals. Any such use of a domain in connection with such observed conduct, is in violation of the registry’s acceptable use policy.”

Later on, Kiwi Farms came back online using “Kiwifarms.pl” as the burner domain this time, with these familiar DNS records:

It should be noted Flow Chemical Pty Ltd is Josh’s former shell company. It was an Australian company designed to house a /24 APNIC IP range that Kiwi Farms operated on.

Update 7/29/23:

Kiwifarms.pl is already down.

DNS records remain the same, however, according to IncogNET (immediate upstream it seems) HE dropped Kiwifarms.pl directly.

Today we filed an official complaint against @henet (Hurricane Electric) with the @AGOWA (Attorney General of Washington State) over their censorship of legal and protected speech. We have also reached out to the @EFF who has previously shown support in protecting the foundation… pic.twitter.com/im8hkAZLZE

— IncogNET (@IncogNetLLC) July 29, 2023

Here’s what Josh had to say:

Update 7/30/23:

Kiwifarms.pl is back online again, Hosteam and UAB Cherry Servers remain the two DNS records available.

It seems Josh has removed his own IPs from the DNS of the domain (the Australian shell company, Flow Chemical Pty Ltd, you saw above earlier).

Here’s what Josh’s ASN looks like now:

IncogNET is ASN 210630 (as shown above), and HE is 6939.

Update 8/8/23:

Josh briefly had another host, Sprint data center, in Poland until they kicked them off. Lasted about a day.

As of right now, the only DNS record available on Kiwifarms.pl is Hosteam. UAB Cherry Servers is gone.

Update 8/9/23:

We just released a new article about a strangely coincidental FBI seizure over at Sprint data center, the same day Kiwi Farms was booted off its network.

Update 8/24/23:

Kiwifarms.pl was “seized” by KeySteams, a German company, according to Joshua Moon.

Kiwifarms now operates under the kiwifarms.st domain. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Also, Joshua Moon had his new Twitter or X profile suspended about a week after making it.

Update 9/3/23:The well-known digital rights group, Electronic Frontier Foundation, just released an article about HE removing Kiwi Farms from its network. We just posted a new article about it here.

Update 11/1/23:We just published a new article about Cogent removing Kiwi Farms from its network. This is probably the last article we’ll post about Kiwi Farms as it’s just entirely played out now. It’s the same thing over and over again.