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My next chapter
- rdl 11y agoWow, congratulations!
- sharkjacobs 11y agoI would be fascinated to know what kind of position he was hired for.
- duskwuff 11y agoNew maintainer for Memegen? (http://www.buzzfeed.com/reyhan/inside-googles-internal-meme-generator http://www.buzzfeed.com/reyhan/inside-googles-internal-meme-...)
- themoonbus 11y agoI'm interested to see if this is part of a movement by Google towards a different notion of community & identity than Facebook. Moot has very different position than Mark Zuckerberg when it comes to identity online: http://venturebeat.com/2011/03/13/4chan-moot-christopher-poole-sxsw/ http://venturebeat.com/2011/03/13/4chan-moot-christopher-poo...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- tlrobinson 11y agoGoogle also had a very different position than Moot until about a year and a half ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymwars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymwars
- themoonbus 11y agoAbsolutely, which is why it's an interesting hire.
- Jerry2 11y agoHe backpeddaled from that position fairly quickly. Moot banned Tor use on 4chan, he banned VPN use, proxy use was banned, he added ban-tracking cookies, he added unique IDs, he aded country flags to many boards that didn't want them, etc. He supported anonymity for publicity and did a lot on his site to dissuade its use. When he gave interviews on 4chan, he used to tell everyone that "4chan is not anonymous". About the only thing that's left on 4chan that's "anonymous" is the default username: which is still "Anonymous". You have more anonymity on HN with a throwaway account than you have on 4chan. People also give him too much credit when it comes to community organizing as well. He got lucky with 4chan when he copied 2chan and catered it to english-speaking audience. When he tried to actually create something from scratch, both of his apps failed miserably.
- Mithaldu 11y agoThere's a difference between anonymity of a user to other users, and tools being used by the administration to track and deny bad actors. Besides, i'm pretty sure HN can track people across accounts as well, and if it hasn't banned proxies yet, then only because they haven't been abused enough.
- Jerry2 11y agoHow is using a default name like Anonymous or "Anonymous Coward" (or some other default name on other sites) different from making a throwaway? Making a throwaway might take you few seconds longer but to an admin, it's exactly the same thing. Your IP is tracked in both cases. It's just that "Anonymous" username is EXTREMELY DECEPTIVE since you're NOT ANONYMOUS at all!
- provingmypoint 11y agoOK, here's a throwaway account, for which I had to pick a different user name a few times because of the name restrictions (not to mention a password). You, on the other hand, are not using a throwaway account, so I can tell that you seem to have a rather violent dislike of moot. If this were 4chan, I would have no idea that you made 3 separate posts trying to tear him down.
- ybrah 11y agoEverything moot does leaves a 4chan shitstorm in its wake.
- tychuz 11y agoWho is moot?
- roadnottaken 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Poole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Poole
- Raphmedia 11y agoFounder of 4chan
- kzhahou 11y agohttp://www.google.com http://www.google.com > Give a man a search result, and you help him for a day. Teach a man to google, and you help him for a lifetime.
- GuiA 11y agoEveryone's gotta pay the bills. If you're thrifty, 4-5 years at a company like Google can get you .5-1 mil for your next venture (maybe more, maybe less, depending on your bonuses & promotions, how well the stock performs, etc.) I wouldn't expect any meaningful new product or anything to come out of this - if I had to guess, he was probably hired as an IC. Don't expect him to become some sort of new figurehead at Google for anonymity or identity on the Internet. Have fun Chris.
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoI suspect very few people will ever admit they took a job for the money. Even though its usually true. One of my favorite comments was actually by James Spader about Stargate. You can find the direct quote online, but he basically said it was an awful script but he took the job for the money, and doesn't think there's any shame in that.
- ForHackernews 11y ago> hired as an IC Please expand uncommon abbreviations.
- krisdol 11y agoSeconding -- my guess is Independent Contractor?
- osullivj 11y agoIndividual contributor, as opposed to team lead or manager.
- tinalumfoil 11y agoThought it stood for Independent Contractor at first. Didn't think Google hired those.
- accounthere 11y agoApparently going to be Product manager on Photos according to some Anonymous Googler.
- GameOfTrolls 11y ago>$0.00 TIL Google has janitors
- fredfoobar42 11y agoI'm really not sure how I feel about this. Moot created the biggest, most toxic garbage fire of an internet community, refused to take management of it, and walked away when it became too toxic for anyone to deal with. In a way, he's a perfect new hire for Google, but Google usually doesn't leave quite so much devastation in its wake.
- JoshTriplett 11y agoWhile it might be incredibly toxic at times, it's also the source of quite a lot of interesting Internet culture and movements, many positive works, and a ton of creativity. It's a microcosm of the worst and the best of what the Internet can pull off. Don't dismiss it out of hand as exclusively negative.
- fredfoobar42 11y agoTime and time again, the hands-off moderation of anything on 4chan beyond child pornography has had knock on effects in the real world. GamerGate began life on 4chan, and is still making women's lives miserable. All you have to do is ask Allison Rapp, their latest victim. <http://kotaku.com/the-ugly-new-front-in-the-neverending-video-game-cultur-1762942381> http://kotaku.com/the-ugly-new-front-in-the-neverending-vide... While moot did, eventually, push GamerGate discussion off 4chan, he took forever to do so, and walked away from the site not long after. By not taking a stance on harassment and abuse earlier on, however, he created conditions for such a culture to flourish on 4chan. Is there interesting and positive stuff on 4chan? Almost certainly. Would it still exist had moot taken a stronger stance on dealing with toxic posters? I'll go out on a limb and say yes.
- DanBC 11y agoWait, what makes you say GG started on 4chan? There's plenty of places that are more pro GG than 4chan.
- fredfoobar42 11y ago
- GirlProgrammer 11y agoI love moot! And I love his attention to all communities, especially women in tech.
- c3534l 11y agoMoot has always appeared to me to be a very talented and bright person. I think it's a mistake to judge him by what some people will say on an anonymous image board. The influence of 4chan on internet culture cannot be ignored: everything from LOLCats to advice animals and countless internet slang terms. He's also had a very unique and unusual experience being in charge of a group of people who believe the internet should be controlled chaos. In my opinion, Moot is a lot like Mike Judge after he did Beavis and Butthead: it's too easy to dismiss him because what he created is a bit crass. But he's a smart and talented person who will most likely go on to build a reputation beyond his first big thing.
- Jerry2 11y ago>The influence of 4chan on internet culture cannot be ignored: everything from LOLCats to advice animals and countless internet slang terms. Moot is not community. You cannot credit him with the inventions that his community came up with. His site was the catalyst, of course, but how much credit should he personally get for it? Maybe you could judge him by the success (or the lack of it) of DrawQuest and Canv.as.. the two projects that he spearheaded and got VC funding for.
- user8341116 11y agoAnd 4chan itself is just a clone of a Japanese imageboard, 2ch.
- Koahku 11y ago*2chan, also known as Futaba Channel. Futaba is a "clone" of 2ch with support for images.
- theseatoms 11y agoSure. You can't credit him with 100% of 4chan's cultural impact. But his experience is extremely unique, and likely very valuable to Google.
- c3534l 11y ago
- pinewurst 11y agoCurious how he fits into the goals of "Googliness" for new hires.