Technology

I really appreciate seeing an article written by someone who is actually familiar with the culture and history of the site.

Qanon and Actual Nazis were not 4chan norm back in the day. The alt right nazi hateful shit was posted but it was more like larping/shock value immature crap and nothing like what we see in the mainstream social/media today. Misogyny too. I'm not denying that there weren't people there who meant it but it was 99% shitposting. There's also the hacktivism, social activism, soooooooo many memes like as substantial as YouTube as establishing the humor culture of the internet. I find the site so fascinating and much more than some cesspool of evil it became.

It is weird it is gone. I suspect moot is not so interested in sticking his neck and wallet out to protect the freedom of speech for facscists trying to destroy democracy and that's why it's not back. I'm pretty sure 4chan has been down before for various reasons more substantial than hacking but it could be fabricated memory

Non-paywall: https://archive.ph/7NzMN

Good fucking riddance

It was always shit. IIRC wasn't it started by some guy who was mad Something Awful didn't allow loli?

Gross

Quite proud to say that I've never ventured into any of the #chans. They frighten the fuck outta me, frankly.

I remember when /b/ was good. But then that "moot" newbie came in, and ruined things forever.

...jokes aside I'm going to miss 4chan. Or at least the 4chan from the late 00s ~ early 10s, that I used periodically; it was already problematic, but as other users here said it was a unique experience.

See ya, space cowboys.

4chan in the past years was mostly known as a far right shithole. But I think 4chan had more than that, they also had more progressive hacktivism like Anonymous and they produced a lot of historical memes for the internet. I hope we can have some real historian work that highlights the good and the bad from it and not just its sad ending.

Yep their done.

What happened to 4chan?

There used to be a dozen sites like 4chan. I don't know if any of them are still around, but I'm willing to bet that if 4chan doesn't come back there will be a new website that takes its place.

4chan is a pretty unique experience. Most of the internet is forming into echo chambers, where having a different opinion than the "correct" opinion for that community will get you downvoted or banned. My understanding with 4chan is that post popularity is determined by replies, and frequently controversial opinions/etc get the most replies. So posting stuff that most people will agree will result in a less popular thread than posting something controversial, offensive, or wrong.

I think this leads to a lot of the negative things you've heard about 4chan, but encouraging disagreements between its members keeps it from becoming a full echo chamber like a lot of social media. They still have some dominant community opinions, but those opinions can't really smother all the other opinions like on most sites.

To be clear, 4chan is a cesspool. But for all it's flaws it does offer something unique that's largely missing on other websites.

Why won't it be back in a week? There's nothing stopping it from coming back.

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