Dvach (, from dva "two" and "chan"), also known as 2ch, is the largest Russian anonymous imageboard. It originally began in 2006 and was shut down in 2009. It was succeeded by many copies, one of which became more popular than the original. It is currently known as 2ch.hk and run by Nariman Namazov, nicknamed Abu. After a major DDoS-attack in 2016, it has been hosted by a state-affiliated company, the Mail.Ru Group, leading many users to believe that it was sold to the company for an undisclosed sum. Many users avoid using the name Dvach for 2ch.hk, because they believe the name is only appropriate for the original imageboard. They use various derogatory names instead, such as Kharkach (from (), "to spit", referencing the .hk domain), Sosach (from (), "to suck", from the previous domain name 2ch.so), Mailach (from alleged connections with the Mail.Ru Group), and Abuchan (from Abu) to refer to the newer site. Dvach is often accused of cyberbullying, misogyny, and toxic trolling, but it has also doxxed criminals. History Original Dvach The "old Dvach", 2ch.ru, was launched in February 2006 by Vikentiy Fesunov and was allegedly administered by Konstantin Grusha, who also co-owned several other Russian websites like Bash.im and anime.ru. Its userbase was mostly anime fans, influenced by 4chan, 2channel, and Russian communities popular at the time, especially LiveJournal bloggers. 2ch.ru was the first Russian-language imageboard. Later in 2007, some other websites were created, including Iichan, a heavily moderated imageboard that was a "polite and non-toxic" alternative to Dvach, and now-defunct 0chan, an imageboard for tech geeks, which later developed into a refuge for Dvach users. In January 2009, 2ch.ru was closed. The domain name was still owned by Fesunov so that nobody would claim it. Some of the users went to 0chan, but numerous copies of Dvach were also launched, most notable being 2-ch.ru, known as Tirech (from , ), run by Vitalik and his moderation team. Change of administration In November 2010, Vitalik resigned as an administrator, and a user named Abu succeeded him. He later revealed in an interview with his former classmate, Russian YouTube blogger Ilya Varlamov, that he had bought 2-ch for 10,000 dollars. Abu tolerated some of the derogatory and mocking names given to him and the board by the users, like Macaque or Sosach. He used images of Abu from Disney's Aladdin. Abu changed the moderation team and