The owner of 8chan, the anonymous chat site where the El Paso, Texas gunman reportedly posted a racist screed ahead of the mass shooting Saturday, is being called to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee about the notorious site's racist and extremist content.
"Regrettably, this is at least the third act of white supremacist extremist violence linked to your website this year," lawmakers said in a letter sent to Jim Watkins, who lives in the Philippines.
"Americans deserve to know what, if anything, you, as the owner and operator, are doing to address the proliferation of extremist content on 8chan."
The document was signed by chairman Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., and Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., the ranking Republican committee member.
The site was knocked offline Monday in the wake of the mass shooting in Texas, where gunman Patrick Crusius reportedly posted a screed to the site calling the attack a "response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas."
His document echoed similar anti-immigrant screeds that were posted online before mass shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and Poway, Calif.
Watkins in a video posted to 8chan's Twitter account Tuesday defended the site as a "peacefully assembled group of talking."
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