Kiwi Farms

About

Kiwi Farms, formerly known as CWCki Forums, is a discussion forum and online community founded and owned by Joshua Moon, also known as Null. The website is dedicated to discussions about various internet users who are often referred to as "lolcows" (a term for people being milked for laughs). After its inception in 2007 as a forum dedicated to mocking Chris-Chan, the site evolved into CWCki Forums and eventually changed its name to Kiwi Farms in 2014. The site has garnered a controversial reputation among some online for purportedly encouraging a culture of group harassment, which allegedly includes trolling, doxxing and stalking various internet users, often with real-life consequences that reportedly range from people being swatted to being driven to suicide. In 2022, the site was dropped by its DDoS protection provider Cloudflare after the #DropKiwiFarms campaign, spearheaded by streamer Keffals, gained momentum.

History

Starting in 2007, a community of internet users formed around an interest in YouTuber and webcomic^[11] artist Chris-Chan. In January 2009, the CWC Wiki^[1] was launched, which archived information related to Chris-Chan, including his online presence and personal life. In February 2014, the CWCki Forums were renamed Kiwi Farms.^[2] On July 30th, 2015, a page for Kiwi Farms was then created on Encyclopedia Dramatica.^[4]

Lolcows

The individuals documented on the site are typically classified as "lolcows," a pejorative term for people whose entertainment value is derived from making jokes at their expense. Common targets are reportedly women, minorities, LGBTQ+ personalities and other types of people Kiwi Farm users consider to be mentally ill or sexually deviant. Other than Chris-Chan, the Kiwi Farms community often documented video game developer Brianna Wu, YouTuber Onision and journalist Samuel Collingwood Smith (aka Vodrak).

Online Presence

Following the site's closure in 2017, the Kiwi Farms Tumblr and the Lolcow Wiki were also closed. As of January 2017, the remaining active community sites include the Lolcow.farm^[6] imageboard, /cow/ 8chan^[5] board and the ClubCWCki Forums.^[10]

Controversies

Suicides of Harassment Targets

On June 29th, 2016, 19-year-old Julie Terryberry was found dead after hanging herself at her home in Ontario, Canada. Following her death, many speculated that the Kiwi Farms documentation of her online life may have contributed to her suicide.^[7][8] On July 19th, NY Mag's Select/All published an article titled "Kiwi Farms, the Web's Biggest Community of Stalkers,"^[2] which accused the Kiwi Farms community of choosing targets out of a disdain for the mentally ill.

On June 19th, 2019, American video game developer Chloe Sagal died via self-immolation, allegedly after years of being subject to harassment on Kiwi Farms.^[12] The website began its harassment campaign in 2013 after suspecting Chloe of using money from her Indiegogo campaign for a gender-affirmation surgery.

On June 27th, 2021, video game developer Near, also known as Byuu, posted a Twitter thread detailing their years of experience facing online harassment and pointing to Kiwi Farms as the cause for the abuse they face online worsening.^[13] On June 28th, 2022, internet cybersecurity specialist Hector Martin confirmed Near's death after consulting with the Japanese police.^[14]

2017 Shutdown

In January 2017, the Kiwi Farms site was temporarily shut down, with a notice posted on the front page claiming that a "family has been attacked with demands to remove Kiwi Farms" (shown below).

On January 21st, Redditor burningmidnight submitted a post asking about the shutdown to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[3] In the comments section, Redditor Fitey777 claimed that journalist Samuel Collingwood Smith (online handle Vodrak) tracked down the family members of the Kiwi Farms owner and allegedly called their workplaces accusing them of pedophilia. On January 24th, the news site Heat Street^[9] published an article about the site's temporary closure, which included contradicting statements from both Smith and Moon regarding the site's shutdown.

2019 Christchurch Mosque Shootings

In March 2019, Kiwi Farms reposted the livestream and manifesto of the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings, prompting New Zealand police to issue the site a warrant for information on the posters. The website's owner, Joshua Moon, publicly denied them access, mocking their request by calling New Zealand a "shithole country" with a "faggot law."^[17] The website was then blocked by New Zealand internet service providers after the shooting.^[18]

2022 Keffals Swatting Controversy / Cloudflare Campaign

On August 5th, 2022, YouTuber, and Twitch streamer Keffals, real name Clara Sorrenti, was swatted in her home in Ontario, Canada, arrested and then detained for over 10 hours. Sorrenti was later cleared of wrongdoing with police also reportedly acknowledging the incident as a swatting attempt.^[19]

Sorrenti was reportedly the subject of Kiwi Farms harassment prior to the incident, with users on the forum allegedly forging various threats of terrorism in her name and submitting them to local politicians,^[20] though the allegations of Kiwi Farms perpetrating the swattings are unconfirmed. On August 9th, 2022, Sorrenti uploaded a video to her YouTube^[15] channel titled "My life is in danger. I need your help" in which she claimed Kiwi Farms users were behind the incident (shown below).

"The users had narrowed down my address to one in London, Ontario and one in Toronto, Ontario. The police sent SWAT teams to the addresses in both of those cities, including my home, because emails in my name were to local politicians making threats of committing mass violence. I’ve since talked to the elderly Italian man who shares my last name and lived at the address that got swatted in Toronto. He had nothing to do with this and innocent people are being hurt in an attempt to hurt me. This needs to stop."

In the weeks following this, Keffals began a campaign on social media to pressure DDoS mitigation company and web-hosting service Cloudflare to drop Kiwi Farms as a client, organizing protests and encouraging various tech journalists to reach out to Cloudflare for statements regarding their business contracts with Kiwi Farms.^[16]

Potential Death Of Kiwi Farms

On September 3rd, 2022, Cloudflare blocked Kiwi Farms, citing escalating threats to human life appearing on the site. The decision came three days after the company said it wouldn't take action, comparing itself to a telephone service provider that wouldn't take away a person's ability to use the telephone despite that person saying horrible things.

Kiwi Farms then moved to a Russian domain, but that domain's DDoS provider, DDoS-Guard also quickly terminated services for Kiwi Farms. This led Joshua Moon to declare that the site's prospects were grim, foreseeing that Kiwi Farms would go the way of 8chan and Daily Stormer, two formerly prominent sites that became less prominent after they were deplatformed.

The blocking of Kiwi Farms by Cloudflare and DDoS-Guard caused Keffals to declare the #DropKiwiFarms campaign a success.

Search Interest

External References