Vichan crisis
| > | Vichan has reached its end of life. many of us have lost interest in the project, and the current direction of the internet has not been good for imageboards, whether its ID verification laws, big social media companies killing competition, or Google being hostile towards smaller sites. There are other imageboard engines out there but even if you use them, these are still issues you will need to think about if you start an imageboard or UGC website. You can still install or fork vichan, but do so at your own risk. | < |
| - Angeleno[1] | ||
The Vichan crisis was an event within the Splintersphere, specifically for splinters that used a non-kuz vichan fork. The crisis began with leaked screenshots posted on the Shemmy by a currently unidentified hacker describing his ability to shut down splinters that use Vichan, planning on shutting down the Shemmy first. The hacker notably called out Swedishwin.com as a target, however, he stated he had no plans at that moment for when he would start. Before the first threats were made, the hacker would start by presumably obtaining all the info he could, and then killing all moderation on the Shemmy by changing configurations to allow for major board spam and locking all janitors out of their accounts. After this, he started spamming DNB and other adjacent things.[such as?] Due to the developer being asleep at the time, and the owner not having access to the server, the website would stay up for an additional 7 hours before they forced a total shutdown of the website. This would throw the various splinters still on Vichan into a panic, resulting in downtime for many, and more unusual measures, such as Cloudflare-level blocking on the mod.php pages.
Sequence of events
[edit | edit source]Shemmy leaks
[edit | edit source]On July 6, 2026, close to 10 a.m. UTC, a hacker leaked screenshots of the Shemmy's admin interface. Shemmy users would believe that this was just a rogue janny, but they would be proven wrong soon enough when the hacker publicly revealed what he did.[2] Information about the hack would quickly spread to a number of splinters, primarily ones mentioned by the hacker. Here are a collection of the screenshots the hacker leaked below:
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Admin feedback list
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Admin's Cloak and IP address (censored)
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The first image posted by the hacker
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List of all janny notes written
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Shemmy admin post on /j/
At first, users were skeptical that this hacker would do anything to actually shut down the Shemmy, seeing as he hadn't already done it despite his immense control, although this would later be found to be caused by the developer being asleep and not being able to just shut it down. Even though the hacker leaked mod notes, all mod accounts, and some of /j/, he refused to leak anyone's IP, showing he had some morality. Speculation around the identity of the hacker would form soon enough, with posters on the Shemmy and Swinny pondering if it was a Sharty user, an obsessed SoyBooru cuck, or someone in Quote's cabal.
However, current evidence DOES point to someone in Quote's cabal being the answer, for they have had a history of targeting splinters no matter how brimmy or gemmy they might be (except ones under Quotecord control/influence like the Zarty and the Chaddy), have worked with their own version of Vichan for years now, and desire more traffic both to the imageboard and 'ru while using soyop techniques, like banning mentions of splinters on the Sharty. Albeit, it could very well be some embittered soyposter who doesn't have allegiance to any website and hacks indiscriminately. More information on this history can be found here: Limeade leak
Shemmy shutdown and reaction
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Hours before the threats, the hacker would shut down Shemmy moderation to prevent anyone from deleting anything and approving new IPs, and began to exhaust the website with incredible amounts of spam. The hacker was joined by a 3rd party DNB spammer while all of this was happening, making the long wait until shutdown worse. A janitor even spammed repeating text saying "STOP POSTING DNB NIGGER" in response to the DNB spam.[3] After some time of constant spamming, the website was forced to shut down completely until it switched to eirinchan, the imageboard software of the Banty, that got the Shemmy hacked in its first day running on it. This event was noticed by a manager on the Swinny, who had been monitoring the situation occurring on the Shemmy, and he contacted the rest of the Swinny staff to warn of the "dire situation" that befell the Swinny. Users were informed in an unrelated thread of the shutdown, and soon enough, a /q/ thread would be created for active users to read up on the event.
Swinny shutdown
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As promised, the Swinny shut down on the evening of July 6th (UTC). The decision was approved of by Carl XVI Gustaf (the Swinny's admin) and most jannies, recognizing the website was likely the next big target on the hacker's list. All activity held on the Swinny was transferred to a bunker thread on the Swinny's pseudo-sister website, the Nutty, where developers and staff kept up communications with Swedes on updates.[4] While the Swinny was shut down, the developer team was forced into actual activity, such as converting all of the Vichan code to JSchan for added security, working on converting old posts to the new engine, and bringing the website back up very quickly to prevent its death.[5] The conversion to JSChan will be used to safely continue development on the Swinny's own imageboard engine: "SwedeChan". An announcement was posted to the Swinny's official Telegram, if (You) care.
Swedes would coin the term "the Swedepocalypse" for this event.[citation needed]
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Swinny manager's update to Swedes
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Developer update on JSChan conversion
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JSChan Swinny before the website is brought back
Wider Soysphere reaction
[edit | edit source]Whether it was taken seriously at all is up for a HEAVY DEBATE, but the only core Soysphere website that seemingly cared was the SoyBooru. The Sharty used to crack down on any mentioning of splinters outside of their control, so they do not know and do not care. SoyBooru users primarily used this event as fodder for shitflinging against the Swinny,[6] and in some amount, the Shemmy. Wider Soysphere reactions have been small as of now.
Vichan reaching its end of life
[edit | edit source]As part of the hack aftermath, Angeleno decided to archive the Vichan repositoryποΈ[7] including a warning that people still using Vichan to do so at their own risk.
Who dunnit?
[edit | edit source]No credible information has been released, but former Shemmy moderator Glisterald claims to have taken part of this as chinny namefag Quant.
For now, absolutely do NOT use any Vichan imageboard without a VPN. Just because the hacker hasn't leaked IPs of anyone yet doesn't mean he won't. Stay safe, soyposters.
Notes
- β Played a part in it, but was NOT the hacker himself.
Snopes
- β https://gyo.tc/2026-0727-1728-07/https://github.com:443/vichan-devel/vichan/commit/ec2784c94893d6a3ff4a6d7766041affffdd365a
- β https://archive.is/xfJar
- β https://archive.is/OuefV
- β https://gyo.tc/2026-0708-0041-39/https://thatsnuts.online:443/squirrel/thread/206.html
- β https://gyo.tc/2026-0708-0043-29/https://thatsnuts.online:443/squirrel/thread/1021.html
- β https://gyo.tc/2026-0708-0102-00/https://soybooru.com:443/forum/gen/thread/32051
- β https://gyo.tc/2026-0727-1728-07/https://github.com:443/vichan-devel/vichan/commit/ec2784c94893d6a3ff4a6d7766041affffdd365a
