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4chan and 8chan – Monitoring the Hotbeds of Extremism and Radicalism

32 points by rangeva 7y ago

whenchamenia 7y ago
'Memes we disagree with are literal Terrorism!' Jfc, is this really the state of affairs today?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
scohesc 7y ago
Unless I'm missing something, 4chan and 8chan are both available on the clearweb still - it seems like the article is implying that they're both not anymore? Looks like an advertisement for WebHost more than investigative journalism.
- excalibur 7y ago
  I made the same mistake in a now-deleted comment. Read further, those two are not what the article is talking about. Title should be changed, article is called "Imageboards: Monitoring the Hotbeds of Extremism and Radicalism".
- gruez 7y ago
  >8chan are both available on the clearweb still https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8chan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8chan >Current status: No longer on clearnet as of August 4, 2019
  - ryeights 7y ago
    From what I can tell, its Tor address is down as well.
- seattlebarley 7y ago
  8chan is dead. Jim could barely keep the site going when it was up. Gonna miss it. /pol/ on 8ch was pretty gross, but /christianity/ and a few of the other smaller boards had great communities. I especially don't know where to find a Christian imageboard anymore. There are Christian threads on 4/pol/ every once in a while, but those guys are mostly looking for an alternative way to express their traditionalist sentiments rather than actually follow Christ. Anyhow, I hope the losers that continually bitch about 4chan and 8chan understand what they're ruining. It's a lot more than just /pol/.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- georgeZX 7y ago
  8ch is not available in the clear web, from well-known reasons ... 4Chan.org is still available there. The shift of 8ch to TOR and another type of networks started some time ago as a result of the need to be "free from censorship" , I personally think that this type of chase will never end as there is a basic contradiction between the type of topics discussed there and the need of goverments to protect and monitor.
AllegedAlec 7y ago
Talking about any chan as though it's a monolithic entity is a huge mistake. There's very little overlap in the users between, for example, /ck/, /tg/, /fit/ and /pol/. The first three can hardly be called hotbeds of Extremism and Radicalism, unless you think that ridiculing crossfit will somehow lead to a second holocaust...
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  To further this point, each board on a chan is like a subreddit on reddit. They each have their own community, with their own memes, rules, and "culture" for lack of a better term.
- nih0 7y ago
  true, theres even an /lgbt/ board on 4chan
msla 7y ago
> The dark web is believed to be heavily monitored by intelligence and law enforcement agencies who often subvertly operate exit nodes in an attempt to trace the traffic back to its origin. Everyone says this, never quite realizing that hidden services (the .onion links on TOR) don't rely on exit nodes, and therefore wouldn't be subverted by such measures. They also say that 8chan users are revealing their IP addresses. First, if 8chan is gone from the clearnet, this means they're posting to a .onion domain, right? The websites are a bit unclear on this, but Wikipedia seems to imply that 8chan is no longer available on clearnet since August. So how are they divulging their IP addresses?
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  Click the link to find out! I did, and it turns out lots of users simply connected to the new site without TOR.
- scoutt 7y ago
  Apparently one 8chan mirror is running on Zeronet, which doesn't mask/hide/route IP addresses unless you use TOR (https://zeronet.io/docs/faq/#how-to-use-zeronet-with-tor https://zeronet.io/docs/faq/#how-to-use-zeronet-with-tor).
not_a_cop75 7y ago
"They are, however, both well-known breeding grounds for radicalism and extremism." First of all, they are hot beds for the 1st amendment. If you believe in the 1st amendment, then you believe that places where people can voice their opinions, no matter how misled, should exist. Secondly, this journalist has no idea what the darkweb is and should be put on leave until they actually do their research. Lastly, and this is a biggie: If you ban people who talk about terrible things, all you've done is succeed in moving them where they are harder to monitor.
- guerrilla 7y ago
  They can be both.
- pohl 7y ago
  The 1st Amendment is irrelevant. At best you can appeal to a general principle of "freedom of speech," but you cannot appeal to the right to free speech protected by that amendment, which has to do with limiting the Government's ability to curtail freedom of expression. 8chan and 4chan are private entities. https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
  - not_a_cop75 7y ago
    Well, it depends. If the government is perceived as using corporations to do their dirtywork, then it would definitely fall under that law. And we know from government history that the government does indeed do this from time to time. And certainly the right to say something never guarantees freedom from the repercussions of saying it. That was never implied in my words, although maybe you've pulled that from some groupthink somewhere.
    - pohl 7y ago
      If there's any groupthink somewhere, it's in the notion that "[N-chans] are hot beds for the 1st amendment." They are not. Nothing prevents them from creating and enforcing standards of conduct, not even the constitution.
dido_ddos 7y ago
"This pie chart, extracted from Webhose Cyber data, shows the subject matter of discussions in three leading imageboards: 8chan, 4chan, and endchan." I liked the pie chart that comes right after, pretty cool, it's like they can tell the site DNA by looking over the different threads. From my experience, dark web can be anywhere ... saw it in gaming chat platforms or even portals that nobody will believe. I truly believe that the *chans are part of the extremist's hotbeds and I know for sure there are more out there more anonymous and well hidden. Rumors recently mentioned around Zeronet and Telegram.
Lethaldeeds 7y ago
Radicals start their actions with ideas and words spread in one way or another We saw this in gab.ai and the Pittsburgh shooting,which since then closed their gates to the public... Never know where the next shooter will publish his last words before the shooting

32 points by rangeva 7y ago

whenchamenia 7y ago

'Memes we disagree with are literal Terrorism!' Jfc, is this really the state of affairs today?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

scohesc 7y ago

Unless I'm missing something, 4chan and 8chan are both available on the clearweb still - it seems like the article is implying that they're both not anymore? Looks like an advertisement for WebHost more than investigative journalism.

excalibur 7y ago
I made the same mistake in a now-deleted comment. Read further, those two are not what the article is talking about. Title should be changed, article is called "Imageboards: Monitoring the Hotbeds of Extremism and Radicalism".
gruez 7y ago
>8chan are both available on the clearweb still https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8chan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8chan >Current status: No longer on clearnet as of August 4, 2019
- ryeights 7y ago
  From what I can tell, its Tor address is down as well.
seattlebarley 7y ago
8chan is dead. Jim could barely keep the site going when it was up. Gonna miss it. /pol/ on 8ch was pretty gross, but /christianity/ and a few of the other smaller boards had great communities. I especially don't know where to find a Christian imageboard anymore. There are Christian threads on 4/pol/ every once in a while, but those guys are mostly looking for an alternative way to express their traditionalist sentiments rather than actually follow Christ. Anyhow, I hope the losers that continually bitch about 4chan and 8chan understand what they're ruining. It's a lot more than just /pol/.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
georgeZX 7y ago
8ch is not available in the clear web, from well-known reasons ... 4Chan.org is still available there. The shift of 8ch to TOR and another type of networks started some time ago as a result of the need to be "free from censorship" , I personally think that this type of chase will never end as there is a basic contradiction between the type of topics discussed there and the need of goverments to protect and monitor.

AllegedAlec 7y ago

Talking about any chan as though it's a monolithic entity is a huge mistake. There's very little overlap in the users between, for example, /ck/, /tg/, /fit/ and /pol/. The first three can hardly be called hotbeds of Extremism and Radicalism, unless you think that ridiculing crossfit will somehow lead to a second holocaust...

vorpalhex 7y ago
To further this point, each board on a chan is like a subreddit on reddit. They each have their own community, with their own memes, rules, and "culture" for lack of a better term.
nih0 7y ago
true, theres even an /lgbt/ board on 4chan

msla 7y ago

> The dark web is believed to be heavily monitored by intelligence and law enforcement agencies who often subvertly operate exit nodes in an attempt to trace the traffic back to its origin. Everyone says this, never quite realizing that hidden services (the .onion links on TOR) don't rely on exit nodes, and therefore wouldn't be subverted by such measures. They also say that 8chan users are revealing their IP addresses. First, if 8chan is gone from the clearnet, this means they're posting to a .onion domain, right? The websites are a bit unclear on this, but Wikipedia seems to imply that 8chan is no longer available on clearnet since August. So how are they divulging their IP addresses?

SiempreViernes 7y ago
Click the link to find out! I did, and it turns out lots of users simply connected to the new site without TOR.
scoutt 7y ago
Apparently one 8chan mirror is running on Zeronet, which doesn't mask/hide/route IP addresses unless you use TOR (https://zeronet.io/docs/faq/#how-to-use-zeronet-with-tor https://zeronet.io/docs/faq/#how-to-use-zeronet-with-tor).

not_a_cop75 7y ago

"They are, however, both well-known breeding grounds for radicalism and extremism." First of all, they are hot beds for the 1st amendment. If you believe in the 1st amendment, then you believe that places where people can voice their opinions, no matter how misled, should exist. Secondly, this journalist has no idea what the darkweb is and should be put on leave until they actually do their research. Lastly, and this is a biggie: If you ban people who talk about terrible things, all you've done is succeed in moving them where they are harder to monitor.

guerrilla 7y ago
They can be both.
pohl 7y ago
The 1st Amendment is irrelevant. At best you can appeal to a general principle of "freedom of speech," but you cannot appeal to the right to free speech protected by that amendment, which has to do with limiting the Government's ability to curtail freedom of expression. 8chan and 4chan are private entities. https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/
- not_a_cop75 7y ago
  Well, it depends. If the government is perceived as using corporations to do their dirtywork, then it would definitely fall under that law. And we know from government history that the government does indeed do this from time to time. And certainly the right to say something never guarantees freedom from the repercussions of saying it. That was never implied in my words, although maybe you've pulled that from some groupthink somewhere.
  - pohl 7y ago
    If there's any groupthink somewhere, it's in the notion that "[N-chans] are hot beds for the 1st amendment." They are not. Nothing prevents them from creating and enforcing standards of conduct, not even the constitution.

dido_ddos 7y ago

"This pie chart, extracted from Webhose Cyber data, shows the subject matter of discussions in three leading imageboards: 8chan, 4chan, and endchan." I liked the pie chart that comes right after, pretty cool, it's like they can tell the site DNA by looking over the different threads. From my experience, dark web can be anywhere ... saw it in gaming chat platforms or even portals that nobody will believe. I truly believe that the *chans are part of the extremist's hotbeds and I know for sure there are more out there more anonymous and well hidden. Rumors recently mentioned around Zeronet and Telegram.

Lethaldeeds 7y ago

Radicals start their actions with ideas and words spread in one way or another We saw this in gab.ai and the Pittsburgh shooting,which since then closed their gates to the public... Never know where the next shooter will publish his last words before the shooting