/zoo/ was a board dedicated to bestiality and zoophilia. It serves as a critical case study for understanding the "feedback loop of extremity." In environments where there are no legal or social guardrails, communities do not merely exist; they radicalize. This paper argues that /zoo/ was a natural byproduct of the "chan" philosophy—specifically the rejection of normativity—and that its existence was inextricably linked to the site’s technical architecture. To understand /zoo/, one must understand the platform that hosted it. Unlike Reddit or 4chan, 8chan operated on a user-created board system. If a topic did not have a board, a user could create it.

Following the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019, 8chan was deplatformed by its infrastructure providers (Cloudflare, etc.). When the site rebranded as 8kun, a massive restructuring occurred. To appease payment processors and infrastructure providers, 8kun implemented a "whitelist" system. Boards like /zoo/, which were deemed too risky and repugnant, were not whitelisted. This marked the official end of the board on the clear web, forcing the remaining community into the dark web or decentralized file-sharing networks (like ZeroNet).

The Architecture of Anonymity and Radicalization: A Case Study of 8chan’s /zoo/ Board