Kiwi Farms was once of the most notorious far-right social media networks on the web. Then late last year, the platform infamous for facilitating doxing and swatting experienced a series of setbacks largely associated with its users targeting a popular transgender activist and Twitch streamer.
Today Kiwi Farms is a shell of its former self. As the platform has careened from hosting service to catastrophe over the last several months, another site has quietly taken its place: Poast. Poast is a federated social network that uses independently hosted servers, which allows users to post in the main forum or create their own. It functions similarly to Mastodon.
Few outside the cloistered world of extremely online far-right trolls and shitposters—and the researchers who work to expose them—have ever heard of Poast. Now a cache of leaked data appears to have exposed Poast and its users. The leaked data, first reported by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, was posted online in the last week. It includes thousands of email addresses, usernames, and direct messages.
Though the data has not been independently verified, the leak has been confirmed by users on multiple platforms, including Daniel Stevens, who reportedly created Poast.
Stevens, known as “anime graf mays” or simply “graf,” has posted about the data breach many times in the last week. On May 25, Stevens claimed that the breach initially occurred six days earlier. Yesterday, he confirmed that “the poast leak happened.”
Poast launched in 2021. It’s described as “fediverse for shitpoasters.” The site’s main page says that it isn’t currently accepting users. Leaked chats purportedly by Stevens state that the platform is invite only.
If the leaked list of email addresses is accurate, in the two years since it launched, it has amassed over 30,000 users.
The content on Poast is akin to that which you’ll find on Kiwi Farms and other far-right havens, such as 4chan, where Stevens claims to have formerly worked. (Stevens has asserted that neither he nor his site has any “political leanings”—while posting and reposting content praising Hitler and containing slurs for racial and sexual minorities.)
Data from the purported breach shows that over a dozen users used the N-word in their handles. Other figures and terms popular among the far-right are also commonly used in screen names, including racial slurs, Nazis’ names, and terms like “based” and “Groyper.” Dozens of users’ email addresses or handles include “kiwi,” an obvious nod to Kiwi Farms.
On user went by the moniker “HitlersMissingTesticle.”
Transcripts of the leaked DMs show that the subject matter discussed on the site is also typical fodder for right-wing extremists. Paranoia runs deep on the platform. There’s a lot of accusations that other users are federal operatives or working with antifascist researchers or the Southern Poverty Law Center. Logs show that conversations about individual racial backgrounds, being an incel, and disparaging minorities are also common.
Though he was reportedly inspired to create Poast based on dissatisfaction with Twitter’s content moderation policies, Stevens’ platform does have some rules. In June 2021, days after his identity was revealed by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, Stevens told a user who goes by borzoi that the team had discussed blacklisting terms and suggested that the rules prohibit revealing other users’ identities.
In a subsequent conversation between the two, borzoi referenced banning someone from his forum and opined that the man was “obsessed” with him as a result.
Stevens replied, “Cringe,” then wrote, “Some of these people are not mentally well.”
Like Kiwi Farms and 4chan, Poast allows far-right extremists and shitposters to network and meet. Stevens also regularly solicits funds from the faithful. Last year, he offered borzoi the “opportunity” to invest $50,000.
borzoi replied, “If I had that kind of money I probably wouldn’t be living in a double wide,” adding, “if I had the money I would invest tho.”
“Bro its fine I won’t ever tell you I will do you something and ask you for money either,” Stevens wrote in response. “Just wanted to offer you the option to make passive income … this is going to make major dollarinos.”
Earlier this year, a user with “88” in their handle—a code for “heil Hitler”—thanked Stevens for introducing him to all these “based guys” on Poast.
The same user then lamented that he wasn’t in a position to donate any money to Poast.
Stevens did not immediately respond to request for comment sent via email Tuesday morning.
