Infamous website ready to close after costs become an issue
The website 4chan may be shutting down soon as its moderator, Hiroyuki Nishimura, struggles to find ways for the website to fund its “infrastructure costs, network fee, [and] server costs,” according to his Oct. 2 apology post on the forum. The website has explored advertising and the possibility of paid membership, but the underlying structure of 4chan makes both of these options unlikely.
To those who are not familiar with this beast of an internet sensation, 4chan is an image-sharing website founded in 2003 by Christopher Poole who intended it to be a platform for users to discuss anime. It quickly morphed into much more than that, with anonymous users fully exploiting 4chan’s “no rule” policy. The website is split into different boards of discussion, but no board is more infamous than the /b/ board, which hosts a slurry of random posts from users and has often been the subject of controversy. The anonymous users on the /b/ board often make extremely racist, sexist, and/or homophobic posts, and exhibit various other forms of bigotry. White supremacy is rampant throughout the posts.
“The anonymous users on the /b/ board often make extremely racist, sexist, and/or homophobic posts, and exhibit various other forms of bigotry.”
Most of the website is based on entertaining other users, purposefully inciting rage, and often trolling for the “lulz”—a term created by the users to mean laughs at other people’s expense. The site is responsible for harmless widespread memes (at least initially harmless) like “Pepe the Frog” and “Rickrolling,” but also much more extreme movements like the #CutsForBieber trend in which 4chan users encouraged young fans to self-harm. They are also responsible for leaking and propagating the nude photos of many female celebrities and hacking into Trayvon Martin’s social media accounts after his death and making racist posts. Another extreme incident of trolling was in 2008 when a user was able to hack into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo! email account and leaked the contents onto 4chan and Wikileaks.
4chan is also a platform of distribution for many forms of child pornography, infamously dubbed “cheese pizza” by its users. Many FBI cases have resulted in the arrest of individuals in possession of child pornography originating on 4chan. This is a disturbing trend as the website’s traffic is over 22 million unique visitors per month. Since users do not have to register to join the site, it’s easy to see how these things can pop up on the public domain and become hard to trace.
“4chan is also a platform of distribution for many forms of child pornography, infamously dubbed ‘cheese pizza’ by its users.”
The website’s growth, however, has become unfeasible for its operation. Nishimura has proposed a “4chan pass” meaning users will have to pay for using the website. Although this is not likely to be executed as users would have to register payment information and thus compromise their anonymity. Moreover, the website is having difficulty finding advertisements; due to its subject matter, companies are not keen to have their names associated with 4chan. However, Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical executive responsible for a 5556% increase on his antiparasitic drug, has expressed interest in funding the website. Milo Yiannopoulos, an alt-right member who has ties with Donald Trump and white nationalism, is interested in the running of the website as well, according to Inquisitr.com.
So how is it that after all of this, the website has stayed alive for the past decade? Poole chalks it up to its anonymity and lack of infrastructure that has allowed its user to post whatever they please. While 4chan has milked these facts and often used them to hurt others, there is a very appealing principle beyond all of its antics. The content is completely uncensored. In a world where this suppression of ideas is seen everywhere, from news to media, the idea of an uncensored discussion board is highly alluring.
Although 4chan’s users have warped the idea of complete freedom of speech, it is still important to think about how anonymity has disappeared, and the importance—yet danger—of unfiltered thoughts.
Photo courtesy (cc0-public-domain) cimabue.