8Chan Founder Speaks Out After Photos Appear to Show VICE News Reporters Breaking Into His Home

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May 23, 2019

Jim Watkins, the owner of the controversial free speech site 8chan, has released a video on YouTube accusing liberal journalists from VICE News of illegally entering his home in the Philippines.

He talked of Nazi Germany and the U.S. treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II in the video as examples similar to the crime committed by these so-called journalists, who he called the equivalent of brownshirts, at his domicile.

“The atrocities of the past could very well happen again if we, as decent law-abiding folks, allow this sort of action to be tolerated,” he said.

Watkins claims that VICE News reporter Elle Reeve and her producer Lani Levine broke into his home with an unnamed cameraman, and then barged into his bedroom hoping to get a scoop exposing the man who is being blamed for facilitating terrorism after two spree shooters recently posted their manifestos on his platform.

They were caught by a camera apparently committing the breaking and entering in this picture:

“When I was confronted by them, I was completely shocked. I had already told the same employees of VICE News that ‘no, I did not to be interviewed by them.’ They had no right to be in my home,” he said.

Watkins claims they are “lucky to be alive” because he would have reacted much differently to their intrusion had his children not been around. He claimed that the videos were being livestreamed on social media. The Twitter accounts of Levine and Reeve are now blocked from public accessibility.

Despite the encounter, Watkins is emboldened to keep his platform free for individuals to be heard on the internet who are deemed guilty of wrong-think by Big Tech monopolists.

“I run my website so that those who are silenced still have a placed to write and be heard,” he said before noting that he had been banned from publishing by many of the tech giants.

Watkins also said he would rather be interviewed by someone like Joe Rogan, the popular stand-up comedian who hosts an influential podcast, than someone from the biased fake news.

This follows a VICE News report that painted 8chan as a menace responsible for facilitating the rise of white supremacist terrorism. U.S. government officials hope for censoring one of the last bastions for free speech on the internet.

“Do you have any recommendations about what can be done to address the violent hate speech and incitement of violence found on fringe sites like 8chan and Gab,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) asked U.S. deep state officials during a recent House Committee on Homeland Security hearing.

“Y’all don’t have any suggestions for us?” Rogers said after hearing silence. “That’s scary.”

“What we’ve seen in the last four to five years is the homegrown violent extremist threat, where someone can get on the internet and self-radicalize,” said Michael McGarrity, assistant director for counterterrorism at the FBI, who claims his agency is actively investigating “racially motivated extremists who support the majority of the white race.”

“We’re seeing that same type of threat in the domestic terrorism world, where individual actors — lone wolves — can find their ideology to justify their actions online,” McGarrity added.

“We know much of this is happening on 8chan, and if we have not had any direct contact with the administrators of 8chan, then I don’t know what protocols we have in place to make sure the materials are taken off 8chan as quickly as possible,” Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) said.

VICE News may have become overzealous in an attempt to defame Watkins to assist further censorship efforts against internet freedom. Authorities in the Philippines have been notified of the alleged breaking-and-entering crime. VICE News has yet to comment on the scandal.

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