I bought a 4chan pass today just to support the effort. If there's ever a hornets nest you don't want to fuck with it's 4chan and i can't imagine a better poking stick than ofcom.
That certainly used to be the case pre-2012. All the former hactivists have long since left. marriage, kids, real life, etc... Now it's mostly handfuls of edgy boys on cell phones in school and 4chan-GPT creating and responding to threads. I wish I were wrong. The site went mostly dead for about two weeks when USAID was defunded and had to shift funding sources then all the usual re-re-re-re-re-posted topics in /g/ returned. Some of them are on this site too ... inb4 they reply. Adding to this now the general public have the real names, IP addresses and locations of all the moderators so they are less likely to participate in doxxing.
There was a quote, "4chan is where smart people go to act stupid, facebook/reddit is where stupid people go to act smart". That probably needs to be updated.
I never said that. USAID manipulate narratives on all popular multimedia and social media sites. Anyone may post on 4chan and anyone with a 4chan-pass may use proxies and VPN's.
I wouldn't be surprised to read that on 4chan, but on HN ... we need some credible citations. :)
Speaking of misinformation, there are efforts to suggest USAID is actually US AID inferring they are some type of AID organization including putting "AID" in a different color in their logo. A few times a year they contribute small amounts of resources so they can get away with saying it but they are actually the United States Agency for International Development [3] originally meant to sway public opinion in other nations but started targeting people in the USA and its allies.
I think the take-away is that everything on the internet including references and citations are probably misinformation of misinformation of misinformation. I have sympathy for AI trying to ingest all of it.
[1] - https://unherd.com/newsroom/documents-reveal-us-government-a...
[2] - https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA14/20190521/109537/HHRG...
[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Agency_for_Inter...
1. Raise the cost of conducting malign influence operations against the United States and its allies.
2. Close vulnerabilities that foreign adversaries exploit to undermine democratic institutions.
3. Separate politics from efforts to unmask and respond to foreign operations against the U.S. electoral process.
4. Strengthen partnerships with Europe to improve the transatlantic response to this transnational threat.
5. Make transparency the norm in the tech sector.
6. Build a more constructive public-private partnership to identify and address emerging tech threats.
7. Exhibit caution when reporting on leaked information and using social media accounts as journalism sources.
8. Increase support for local and independent media.
9. Extend the dialogue about foreign interference in democracies beyond Washington.
10. Remember that our democracy is only as strong as we make it.
It's significant that a political faction does everything it can to remove barriers to disinformation, for example using lawfare and other attacks to shut down research into it, using political power to disable the country's ability to protect itself.
Why be disingenous? Do you have something to lose by an honest search for the truth? Do you not want to look for it? Are you so sure that your narrow political group has the truth and no search is needed?
i know, freedom of speech, it's your money and not mine, etc.
how does this relate to what i said? i get the "we're a free platform where everyone can do everything and no one is responsible for anything", just a cheap excuse from my POV considering the unhinged, doxxy culture on there. sure, there are cute boards, nice. i am talking about the inhumane, unhinged slurry of shit.
"Sure my neighbour has a couple of cadavres in his cellar, but have you seen the pretty flowers on his balcony?"
but per usual you can't criticize 4chan in the slightest without its warriors appearing to defend it. i get it. 4chan did and does cool stuff. it also does absolutely disgusting things, surprisingly this always gets dismissed as 'it's only the couple of rogue boards which are crazy'.
i agree :)
> people buy their blue checkmarks there all the time
sadly, yes.
as someone who left reddit so long ago that they don't remember it and really does not care about it, please tell me what's worse on reddit than the constant xenophobic, transphobic and general *phobic stuff on 4chan.
phobic does not even do it justice, as it just straight up advocates for whole races or genders to kill themselves (b-b-b-but, i-i-it's just a joke, kawaii).
Least thats what happened with a scene I'm rather involved in, the threads in recent years became nothing but a cesspool of negativity and most people knew who was behind the constant drama. What people didnt expect was the leak revealed one of the mods was among the group constantly causing it.
maybe this is my bias, could very well be. maybe i should give it a 10th chance and browse the more useful boards.
i guess /g/ would be a start, do you have other recommendations? i mean i'm open to change my mind. for me 4chan stands for alt-right pipelines, spreading far-right ideology online etc., so i just really have a sour taste in my mouth when thinking about it.
The Sarcophagus and the new containment building sure, I meant the original one before the accident.
Most threads still get plagued by a circlejerk of wannabe neonazis repeating shibboleths and transphobia at each other ad infinitum, or if you're lucky enough you find a crumb of quality discussion, often generals, often around derivative content from other platforms or popular media.
There are the rare productive generals that do have people curating information in meaningful ways, or even rarer actually doing things themselves. Far more often generals are just toxic loosely held together "friend" circles who cant get along anywhere else due to a perpetual veil of irony that can only survive in anonymous spaces, often attacking each other for little more than to stir the pot and keep conversation going. They'll still hold a superiority complex over their use of the site even though every single bad thing they'll say about others can be said for 4chan times 10.
Its not 2006 anymore, 4chan isnt a creator of internet culture, 4chan is a dumpster of the web, where art goes to die.