![]() ![]() He allegedly told an FBI agent that his online comments were a joke and referred to it as a “hyperbolic conclusion based on the results of the Waco siege … where the ATF slaughtered families.” He was arrested August 7, and authorities found more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition and 25 guns, including an AR-15, according to charging documents. He blamed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for the deaths of scores of people living at the site and threatened to shoot federal agents. In iFunny posts from June, Olsen discussed the 1993 siege in Waco, Texas, on iFunny, the complaint says. ![]() That led authorities to Justin Olsen, an 18-year-old from Boardman, Ohio, the complaint states. ![]() The FBI subpoenaed iFunny for the account owner’s information and received a Gmail account, and a subsequent subpoena to Google then returned his name and IP address. Mark Wilson/Getty Imagesįeds say in court docs that teen threatened agents and had stockpile of weapons and ammo Wray speaking at a news conference at FBI Headquarters, on Jin Washington, DC. The FBI seal is attached to a podium prior to Director is Christopher A. “They are all over the place, and there are a lot more of them than I think many people think.” “These individuals are on all sorts of different platforms, whether it’s Discord, Facebook, Instagram, (or) iFunny,” he said. That speaks to a broader problem with online extremism – “it’s really diffuse,” he said. Still, despite Hankes’ expertise on online extremism, he said he had not heard of iFunny until these recent arrests. ![]() “You have extremists going to other more broad forums and seeding these ideas and trying to find followers.” “It’s not just in spaces that are specifically tailored for only far-right extremist content,” said Keegan Hankes, who studies online extremism for the Southern Poverty Law Center. N716j49hQm- CNN This Morning August 21, 2019 These came in the form of alleged online threats, texts and posts on a number of social media platforms.Īt least 26 people have been arrested after threats to commit mass attacks since 31 people were killed in one weekend this month in shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Since the shootings in Dayton and El Paso early this month, there have been 27 arrests in 26 instances across the US by law enforcement. And the fact that extremist threats came on a meme site is not out of the ordinary. IFunny has had its own issues with extremists and white supremacy, and as BuzzFeed News documented last week, the site was full of footage from and praise for the Christchurch mosque attacks in March.īut extremism is not exclusive to those sites. In the past year, the online message boards Gab and 8chan, both rife with racist or anti-Semitic messages, have faced scrutiny for their roles as homes to extremists who carried out mass shootings in Pittsburgh, California, New Zealand and El Paso. And this past Friday, federal agents arrested a 19-year-old Chicago man for threatening to kill people at a women’s reproductive health clinic in a post on iFunny. Yet on August 7, the FBI arrested an 18-year-old Ohio man who allegedly threatened to shoot federal law enforcement officers in a post on iFunny. Two young men arrested this month for threatening mass shootings posted those threats to a website known more for its memes than its menaces: iFunny.Ĭreated in 2011, iFunny describes itself as a “community for meme lovers and viral memes around the Internet.” And indeed, the iFunny homepage is full of your standard internet schlock, including screenshots of tweets or tumblr posts, GIFs of “The Office,” trending TikToks and Area 51 jokes. ![]()
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