12chan was a controversial English bulletin board, established by “k0w”, that existed from September 2006 to January 2010. It was notorious for allowing illicit and typically banned content, including suspicious images of children and teenagers, thus why it became a taboo subject.

It's believed that, a month after /b/-day, “k0w” set up 12chan at “12chan.org” with Trevorchan (Kusaba) on September 28, 2006.¹⁾ Due to bandwidth issues, 12chan was password-protected around July 5, 2007, forcing potential users to visit their IRC channel for a valid combination,²⁾ then the hard drive ended up dying which forced them to start over on January 29, 2008 since the backup was simply too old.³⁾

They would upgrade to a new server at “85.17.145.35” on April 12, 2008⁴⁾ and were temporarily housed at “12chan.crabdance.com” on April 24, 2008.⁵⁾ It went down,⁶⁾ returned to the “12chan.org” domain, then started over on November 30, 2008.⁷⁾ However, their domain registrar Gandi would seize the “12chan.org” domain, forcing them back at “12chan.crabdance.com” on January 9, 2009.⁸⁾

According to a felony indictment regarding the distribution of child pornography, it seems that 12chan would manage to regain control of their “12chan.org” domain up until January 8, 2010,⁹⁾ which lines up with the approximate time of death around January 11, 2010.¹⁰⁾ Obviously, there was no going back and it's rumored that 12chan would redirect to Reddit, as they still had the controversial /r/jailbait subreddit.¹¹⁾

• The aforementioned felony indictment¹²⁾¹³⁾ saw a guilty plea on May 11, 2011 and it was believed to result in a 15-year prison sentence,¹⁴⁾ suggesting a release around 2026, but recent updates reveal that he was released from FCI Seagoville on June 28, 2023.¹⁵⁾

• AnonIB

• 12chan [Archive] - The front page of 12chan, archived March 6, 2009.
• 12chan on Wikichan - An older wiki article, stops at mid-2008.