Jeffrey Epstein may not have created /pol/, but he helped carry out its mission

On October 24, 2011, Jeffrey Epstein was emailing back and forth with Boris Nikolic, a biotech venture capitalist who would It will be named later As a backup executor of Epstein’s will. The two were apparently discussing a meeting Nikolic had helped arrange between Epstein and “moot,” the display name of Christopher Ball, who created the 4chan platform in 2003. Nikolic asked Epstein if he liked to debate, and Epstein asked He wrote back And that he loved him very much, and thought he was very clever, and brought him home.

All of these emails were first published along with 3.5 million other documents on Latest (deferred) release. From the Epstein files by the Department of Justice. Prior to this, it was not publicly known that Epstein had any meetings with Paul.

The day before Epstein discussed his interview – perhaps the day they met – Paul was created A new discussion board on the site is called /pol/, which is short for “politically incorrect.” according to 4chan researcher Sal Hagen, Paul had previously closed the board /new/ after that He regrets that It has been overrun by white supremacists. His creation of /pol/ may have been intended to contain 4chan’s more fanatical population, but instead, /pol/ came to define the platform.

The /pol/ board would become one of the most popular alt-right internet spaces of all time, launching the QAnon conspiracy theory, developing modern white supremacist icons like Pepe the Frog, and directly inspiring at least one person. Mass shooter. When Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, /pol/ members Celebrate it As a resounding victory for them.

some Posters He thinks Epstein influenced Paul to create /pol/ during their 2011 meeting, although there is no actual evidence for this theory. The timing can be surreal. But even if it was a coincidence, Epstein’s connection to the center of the emerging Internet-based “alt-right” movement was not.

Epstein’s relationship with Paul appears to have heated up after that initial confrontation, with failed attempts to arrange further meetings Notarized In other emails. But years later, after 4chan helped propel Trump to victory, Epstein developed a tool A much closer relationship With Steve Bannon, the chief strategist behind Trump’s 2016 campaign. As a former president of the conservative outlet Breitbart Newsany He called Bannon, the “alt-right platform,” understood how to weaponize 4chan culture Trump coming to power. Later, after he was ousted by the Trump administration in 2017, Bannon hosted QAnon affiliated activists On his podcast. Bannon was so closely associated with the movement behind that conspiracy that Ron Watkins, believed to be the man behind “Q,” tried to… Pin everything It’s Bannon.

After his split from Trump, Bannon also began meeting with Epstein. The two took a Selfie mirror together. It was Bannon In the photo In deep conversation with Epstein on both sides of the desk. There was even Text messages With Bannon before the day of Epstein’s arrest in 2019. The meeting with Bannon was one of the last plans Epstein canceled before he was taken into custody.

As with Paul, the nature of Epstein’s relationship with Bannon only became known because of what was in Epstein’s files. According to newly released documents, the two talked about supporting far-right politicians In EuropeAnd Epstein too Bannon gave advice On how Trump’s issues are framed on the world stage. Journalist and best-selling author about Trump, Michael Wolff, had an opinion Close relationship With Epstein and sent him extract From the 2019 draft of what would become Siege: Trump under fireWolfe’s second book about Trump. The excerpt showed Bannon saying Epstein was “the only person I was really afraid he would come up to during the campaign.” “Not surprising,” Epstein responded.

There are also more than 1,000 Epstein files mentioning Elon Musk, who, since 2022, has arguably turned Twitter into a larger, more mainstream site. Version of 4chan. Musk has strongly denied any wrongdoing regarding his contacts and relationship with Epstein, and has instead… He pointed with his finger In Bannon and other men named in the files. Many prominent people Men in technologyincluding Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, repeatedly appeared in the latest documents. Musk and Thiel Both are tech billionaires and supporters of far-right politics. In one 2016 Email exchangeEpstein told Thiel that Brexit, the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union, was “just the beginning.” When Thiel asked what Epstein meant, he answered in part: “a return to tribalism,” “anti-globalization,” and “amazing new alliances.”

“For me, the interesting part is (Epstein) is fascinated by these parts of the internet, and he’s fascinated by different aspects of the far right, particularly racist ideas around race and IQ,” said Jared Holt, senior researcher at Open Measures, which monitors and analyzes the spread of extremism and misinformation. “It’s like pseudoscience to try to justify a white supremacist worldview.”

Holt disputes that Epstein directly influenced the creation of 4chan’s /pol/, as conspiratorial posters on the Internet have speculated. But he said Epstein was “comfortable” with figures like Bannon who championed their racist, misogynistic, nihilistic and anti-establishment sentiments in order to gain more power for their own. Holt said many people in the “upper crust” community, the same waters in which Epstein swam, were interested in meeting Paul around 2010. That year, the 4chan creator made a TED talk About anonymity on the Internet, and the previous year, time The magazine’s annual poll named him… The most influential person in the world.

In this era when social media was rapidly gaining influence, Paul was “managing something very different from what was appearing at the time,” Holt said. Unlike Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, 4chan was completely anonymous, and posts were automatically deleted after a certain point (although archives could be traced). It has produced a culture that Holt described as crude and rowdy, in which users band together to wreak havoc elsewhere online. Loosely organized “hacker” group unknown It was born on 4chan, and mainstream media like police procedurals tended to romanticize what these groups were doing. In fact, groups of 4chan users have done things like coordinating a campaign to trend a racial slur to the top spot on Google, spreading misinformation about Steve Jobs’ death that caused Apple’s stock to plummet, and prompted the evacuation of New York City’s JFK Airport, all of which were detailed in a report. 2010 The Washington Post condition That Nikolic Emailed to Epstein at the time he met Paul. “This article describes why I find this topic interesting,” Nikolic wrote. “The potential for manipulation is enormous.”

It’s easy to see why people would use these kinds of emails as a starting point to suspect Epstein of being behind all of 4chan’s major social fallout. But the files show that Epstein was more like a sounding board for a culturally disaffected elite than a puppet master for a similarly disaffected proletariat.

However, there are files that appear to show Epstein’s affinity for 4chan as a user. in Single filewhich contains at least 100 redacted images, there is a screenshot of what appears to be Epstein’s computer, showing his Gmail inbox in a browser tab. In this browser, one of the first bookmarks is 4chan. In 2017, Epstein emailed a woman 4chan link Contains pornographic cartoons inspired by the video game series Five nights at freddy’s.

Epstein appears to have been using 4chan at its cultural peak in the late 2010s, when a large part of the platform’s legacy was its contribution to the digital sexual assault of women. 4chan was one of the places where nude photos of celebrities were sourced iCloud hack 2014 It was published, sparking a worldwide backlash against what is colloquially called “revenge porn,” or, more accurately, the non-consensual distribution of intimate images. In the same year, 4chan users contributed significantly to harassment campaigns against women in the video game industry, known as Gamergate.

Gamergate is mentioned several times in the Epstein files, but not because Epstein himself used the term. It was mentioned In emails Which was sent to Epstein about A BuzzFeed News Investigating allegations of sexual misconduct against Lawrence Krauss, a prominent theoretical physicist He sought Epstein’s advice During the investigation. In his emails, Epstein He advises calmly A number of men were accused during the #MeToo movement while he was planning to try to restore his reputation.

As Epstein’s business model profited more from reactionary culture wars over internet culture, race, and gender, Paul abandoned the platform he had created. Paul sold 4chan in 2015, and the following year I got a job In Google. Before leaving in 2021, Paul worked on Google’s social networking efforts and other teams have existed in relative obscurity ever since. 4chan researcher Hagen, like Holt, doubts that Epstein was responsible for creating /pol/, though he said it would have been “absolutely fascinating” to learn more about the encounter between him and Pol.

“We know at the time that he was also talking to far-right conservative leaders like Bannon, who are people who benefit from far-right politics globally,” Hagen said. “This is not to say that Epstein was a one-man orchestrator behind the scenes. He has the means and contacts, but he seems more opportunistic.”