Crazed 4chan users shut Debito down

The ongoing 2channel litigation just claimed a collateral victim: Debito’s website. Those who read his blog/newsletter will know that he also recently sued 2channel for libel, although he has yet to try collecting on his judgment.

Unfortunately for him, some otaku read the news stories the wrong way and though that it was Debito who was seeking to shut down 2channel. (It’s actually another Japanese guy who’s making the threats to seize the server and the domain name.)

Here’s what happened next, according to an e-mail Debito sent this morning:

From Monday morning Jan 15, the hate mail began trickling in. Then the death threats. Finally, according to my website domain admin today, debito.org has been zapped–i.e. people with large bandwiths have aimed internet guns and fired millions of page accesses onto my the debito.org server, overloading it and closing it down. Which means I am stuck without a site, or a blog, or email, until they get bored.

…The most ironic thing is that most of the hate mail and death threats are in English. Native English, for the most part. Claiming responsibility for all this is some place called “4chan” which is apparently the overseas version of 2-Channel, with the same attitude towards information, anonymity, and personal responsibility.

Here’s the thread that seems to have started it. (Be warned, though, that 4chan is pretty much the realization of the “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.”)

At any rate, Debito’s site appears to be back up and running now.