Jim Watkins 8chan/8kun administrator
Jim Watkins (born 1963 or 1964[1]) is an American businessman and the operator of the imageboard website 8chan and textboard website 2channel. Watkins founded the company N.T. Technology in the 1990s to support a Japanese pornography website he created while he was enlisted in the United States Army. After leaving the Army to focus on the company, Watkins moved to the Philippines. Watkins began providing domain and hosting services to 8chan in 2014, and became the site’s official owner and operator the same year.[1] Watkins became the operator of 2channel after he seized it in 2014 from its creator and original owner, Hiroyuki Nishimura.[2][3]
Some have speculated that Watkins knows the identity of, or that he himself is, “Q“, the person or group of people behind the QAnon conspiracy theory.[4][5][6] In 2020, Watkins created the “Disarm the Deep State” super PAC to support political candidates who promote QAnon.[4]
In the 1990s, while still enlisted, Watkins created a website for Japanese pornography called “Asian Bikini Bar”. By hosting it in the United States he was able to circumvent strict Japanese censorship of pornography. He later renamed the venture “N.T. Technology”, which according to Watkins was a meaningless acronym meant to make pornography purchases less conspicuous on credit card statements.[1] N.T. Technology, which is based in Reno, Nevada, initially sold advertising, and later also sold web hosting services to other Japanese adult entertainment websites that couldn’t be hosted in Japan.[1][2] In 1998 or 1999, during the dot-com boom, Watkins left the army to focus on N.T. Technology.[1]
Watkins has owned or been involved with many business ventures. He owned an organic food restaurant in Manila, Philippines, which is now closed. In 2005, Watkins opened a Manila-based software business called Race Queen, which has subsequently been listed as the employer on Philippine work visas for several employees of Watkins’. Watkins also runs the Manila-based business Loki Technology. He has been involved with a book narration company called books.audio. He has also created a news organization called The Goldwater, whose content has been described by The Washington Post as “notably conspiratorial and amateurish”. He is listed as the chairman of the board of a company called Emerald Pedistal, which sells piglets.