On Saturday morning, a gunman opened fire on shoppers in an El Paso, Texas, Walmart. Twenty-two people were killed, including a mother who was gunned down while cradling her infant son, shielding him from harm. Dozens more were injured, with many still fighting for their lives. It was one of the countrys deadliest mass shootings and the deadliest massacre of Latinos in modern American history.

Shortly before the carnage unfolded, the suspect, a 21-year-old white man, is believed to have posted on 8chan the notorious online message board where bigotry is encouraged and celebrated en masse. There, like other violent extremists before him, he allegedly announced his plans, broadcasted his deeply hateful motivations, and urged others to follow his lead.

The 8chan post included a three-page manifesto that described Hispanic immigrants as invaders that need to be removed or annihilated. It also praised the Australian man who live-streamed himself fatally shooting 51 worshippers at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, as a source of inspiration. Shortly before that attack in March, the alleged Christchurch shooter posted a white nationalist manifesto on 8chan, too.

About a month after Christchurch, on the last day of the Jewish Passover holiday, a white teenage boy armed with an AR-15 style assault rifle stormed a synagogue in Poway, California. He killed one woman and injured three others, including a rabbi. Just before the shooting, he posted an anti-Semitic manifesto on 8chan along with a message: Ive only been lurking for a year and a half, yet, what Ive learned here is priceless. Another 8chan poster swiftly told him to get the high score, meaning to kill as many Jewish people as possible.

As the self-proclaimed Darkest Reaches of the Internet, 8chan is one of the most popular online gathering places for extremists. The anonymous, poorly-policed forum has become an increasingly effective echo chamber for hate, a hotbed for radicalization and a go-to site for aspiring mass killers who dream of viral infamy.

And as the list of killers seemingly radicalized on 8chan gets longer including three in the past five months, who targeted Muslims , Jews and immigrants , respectively the death toll is sure to keep rising.

[8chan] is a completely anonymous place, and thats exactly why its used to stir hatred, and to tell people to commit mass murder, noted Ben Collins , an NBC extremism reporter covering the El Paso tragedy. There is a body count associated with this website now.