The shooter announcing his plans on r9k the day before the attack.
r9k is the same community recruited to stalk Zoe Quinn, an ongoing target of online abuse.
Ten people are dead and seven are wounded in the wake of a mass shooting late yesterday morning at Umpqua Community College in Oregon.
The shooter, 26-year old shut-in Chris Harper-Mercer, announced his plans to kill on the 4chan message board r9k, a community for self-labeled "involuntarily celibate" young men.
Many members of
this community encouraged
Harper-Mercer to "do it"; and celebrated
as news of the massacre hit the airwaves.
The r9k community idolizes acts of domestic terrorism; and consider Elliot Rodger to be something of a folk hero. r9k is also the same online community which Eron Gjoni mobilized to promote "The Zoe Post" in an attempt to harass his ex-girlfriend into killing herself. It is this community which spawned the ongoing domestic terrorism of #Gamergate and Baphomet about which I have been writing for the past year.
This community radicalized Harper-Mercer, encouraged him when he posted his plans, and celebrated amongst themselves when it became obvious the shooter's posts on r9k were genuine. They are currently celebrating in their little r9k club, posting jokey memes and shoutouts to the news media.
To these malajusted shits, encouraging one of their own to go on a killing spree is just another game they play.
This attack demonstrates how Internet communities like r9k are not just online, and not just 'trolling'. At regular intervals, individuals from these groups go out into the real world and actually carry out their attacks, knowing there is a group of anons cheering them on. It's because of this that ten people who may have never heard of 4chan are dead, shot during class by some loser they never knew.
This is domestic terrorism, organized online. When will we start taking it seriously?