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4chan is running out of money–and Martin Shkreli wants to help out

arstechnica.com

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Re: 4chan is running out of money–and Martin Shkreli wants to help out

#21

Post by gnarbarian »

M_Grey wrote: post #10
gravypod wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If hacker news went down would you not use other discussion sites? Why would this not hold true for others who post things you don't like?

I somehow would guess that few people only use HN, in the same way that few only use 4chan.

They have distinct uses and cultures. I use both. Destroying an outlet for a culture leads to migrants and discord at the new host.

This was demonstrated repeatedly when moot would attempt to delete a problem board like /b/ or /pol/ (diffusing that culture to other boards) or when digg would make a significant change causing an influx of migrants to Reddit.

I doubt they would come here though. If 4chan were to disappear entirely, most users would end up going to 8chan. Voting sites are not compatible with the provocative nature of image board cultures.

Re: 4chan is running out of money–and Martin Shkreli wants to help out

#22

Post by techloligy »

unethical_ban wrote: post #3

I recall several netizens posting concern about the buyer of 4chan, how he ran some other Japanese sites into the ground. Now on /. there is someone claiming the new owner turned ads down and tried to promote 4chan passes, which now don't work. Another person points out that even if you hate 4chan (or especially if you do), it'd be better left intact to contain the culture that foments there. Otherwise we might see /…

>I recall several netizens posting concern about the buyer of 4chan, how he ran some other Japanese sites into the ground.

The situation with 2channel was actually a business dispute, at its core. That's not to say Hiroyuki isn't shady, but Jim Watkins/NTTEC (who played an important part in it, and was on the board of 2channel) was also at fault.

Summary: Jim Watkins's company/NTTEC wrote something like 4chan Premium for 2channel back in the early 00's. This was intended to help keep costs under control, and it succeeded by paying for all of the infrastructure and profiting at some point.

But this was not to continue forever: around '13 the application, which didn't encrypt credit card data and associated all posts made using the application to the individual's real names for an arbitrary period of time, experienced a breach.

Because Hiroyuki had given control of the domains and servers over to Jim Watkins, who had up until that point just been his colo, to dodge legal obligations in Japan, Jim Watkins took over. Hiroyuki had nothing to do with the administration or creation of the software that was breached.

They're shady individuals: both are manipulative (they play dumb) when you try to interact with them on their respective forums. But not knowing the specific timeline or everything that happened in the business dispute, it's hard to say who's more at fault in the 2channel situation.

It might also be important to note that the "legal obligations" that Hiroyuki was dodging in Japan are fines for libel, due to Japan not having an equivalent to the USA's Communications Decency Act §230.

Re: 4chan is running out of money–and Martin Shkreli wants to help out

#24

Post by go_go_ »

gravypod wrote: post #5
go_go_ wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another person points out that even if you hate 4chan (or especially if you do), it'd be better left intact to contain the culture that foments there. Otherwise we might see /r/The_Donald style posts all over the internet. I can't help but to think this is pure fear mongering.

If hacker news went down would you not use other discussion sites? Why would this not hold true for others who post things you don't like?

I would use other news sites, but that doesn't mean they would have the same culture. The culture of a site is allowed to exist by the site owners and if no site owner wanted 4chan's culture than they would just weed them out as they attempted to migrate.

We could get rid of 4chan's culture by extinguishing the voice of it, and as long as no one else allows that voice on their site then it ceases to exist.

Re: 4chan is running out of money–and Martin Shkreli wants to help out

#25

Post by gnarbarian »

rarec wrote: post #23
Esperaux wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe /pol deserves him but quite a few boards on 4chan where actually pretty accepting and friendly, particularly /I.

/tg/ has its moments as well.

I like /k/ and /int/

/Pol/ used to be more ideologically diverse where you would always see communists libertarians and national socialists duking it out in hilarious exchanges (both sincerely and ironically). But a massive banwave in November 2014 drove a ton of users to 8chan where anyone can create their own board. So now /pol/ is the alt right equivalent of the monoculture seen at Reddit.com/r/politics and 8chan has 10 echo chambers for each political ideology. Echo chambers cement and worsen extremism and the biggest casualty has been the exchange of banter across ideological boundaries.

Re: 4chan is running out of money–and Martin Shkreli wants to help out

#26

Post by gnarbarian »

go_go_ wrote: post #24
gravypod wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If hacker news went down would you not use other discussion sites? Why would this not hold true for others who post things you don't like?

I would use other news sites, but that doesn't mean they would have the same culture. The culture of a site is allowed to exist by the site owners and if no site owner wanted 4chan's culture than they would just weed them out as they attempted to migrate. We could get rid of 4chan's culture by extinguishing the voice of it, and as long as no one else allows that voice on their site then it ceases to exist.

There are a bunch of boards people would migrate to. But the culture would become more fractured and as a result more extreme at each new location. Similar to what happened after the banwave in November 2014.

Re: 4chan is running out of money–and Martin Shkreli wants to help out

#27

Post by unfunco »

4chan is viable as an anonymous and ephemeral p2p implementation, 4chan has always suffered from the cost of running the service, which is kept to a minimum (relative to say, reddit) due to the lack of persistence. It can thrive with a peer-to-peer infrastructure since the need for advertising to sustain running costs would disappear, add encryption, restrict content to images and text to avoid the RIAA or MPAA getting close and it could be a veritable outlet for unabridged and uncensored views.

Re: 4chan is running out of money–and Martin Shkreli wants to help out

#28

Post by M_Grey »

gnarbarian wrote: post #21
M_Grey wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somehow would guess that few people only use HN, in the same way that few only use 4chan.

They have distinct uses and cultures. I use both. Destroying an outlet for a culture leads to migrants and discord at the new host. This was demonstrated repeatedly when moot would attempt to delete a problem board like /b/ or /pol/ (diffusing that culture to other boards) or when digg would make a significant change causing an influx of migrants to Reddit. I doubt they would come here though. If 4chan were to disapp…

Exactly, and neither is strict moderation or a userbase that has no interest in that kind of thing, and no strong inclination to respond in kind. Still, the idea that somehow 4chan acts to contain the problem is unlikely. If you lance a cyst, you make a mess for a while, but that doesn't mean you've done much more than expose what was already killing you.

Re: 4chan is running out of money–and Martin Shkreli wants to help out

#29

Post by Mizza »

M_Grey wrote: post #8
bbctol wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more likely that without 4chan, the general trolling and immaturity may leak onto the rest of the internet, and the really intense racism/misogyny/conspiratorial weirdness will go further underground and anonymous. Whether this would be a good thing is debatable; I liked that 4chan was open enough anyone could check on it and see which way the undercurrents of the internet were heading, but it probably w…

4Chan isn't a prison, it's an incubator. See: Pepe.

Prison is a criminal incubator.

Re: 4chan is running out of money–and Martin Shkreli wants to help out

#30

Post by gnarbarian »

M_Grey wrote: post #28
gnarbarian wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have distinct uses and cultures. I use both. Destroying an outlet for a culture leads to migrants and discord at the new host. This was demonstrated repeatedly when moot would attempt to delete a problem board like /b/ or /pol/ (diffusing that culture to other boards) or when digg would make a significant change causing an influx of migrants to Reddit. I doubt they would come here though. If 4chan were to disapp…

Exactly, and neither is strict moderation or a userbase that has no interest in that kind of thing, and no strong inclination to respond in kind. Still, the idea that somehow 4chan acts to contain the problem is unlikely. If you lance a cyst, you make a mess for a while, but that doesn't mean you've done much more than expose what was already killing you.

I think it's healthy to have outlets like 4chan where a range of ideas can be thrown against the wall both ironically and seriously.

>If you lance a cyst, you make a mess for a while, but that doesn't mean you've done much more than expose what was already killing you

Except those users don't just go away. there are infinite places to go, none of which are as big as 4chan. So they find pockets of like-minded users and become even more extreme.

This is what happened after the ban wave of Nov 2014. Many different individuals left /pol/ in disgust en-mass to form splinter boards that cater to their particular ideology on places like 8chan. Spurned users also went to other boards and caused even more problems.

Now instead of a giant shitstorm of unbridled banter from all corners of the political spectrum /pol/ is an alt-right echo chamber like a conservative version of reddit.com/r/politics. Meanwhile there are 10 other echo chambers on 8chan for communists, democrats, libertarians and everything else.

The result has been balkanized echo chambers, worsened extremism and less diversity of ideas, discussion and ideology.

That's a bad thing IMO.

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