I posted pretty much every day on 4chan for like five years. While I very rarely visit the site now, I have a really hard time believing Vice is reporting this

I posted pretty much every day on 4chan for like five years. While I very rarely visit the site now, I have a really hard time believing Vice is reporting this accurately. Abusive, toxic, and vile content has been a staple running gag on 4chan for almost a decade. The site has always been populated with people who range between strange and mentally ill. While I realize there are clear and obvious links between 4chan and mass shooters, it's hard to believe that 4chan went like 8 years without "radicalizing" the "angry young men" who visit it and then suddenly they're all raving violent lunatics. I think it's much more likely that it started as a joke that went to far, and is now an extremely vile but small collection of people which can barely be called a 'movement'. Speaking of visitors, the metrics are clearly bullshit. 4chan is anonymous and really nothing in terms of demographics polls can be trusted. I know as an absolute fact that women, trans people, and people of color post on 4chan regularly. People regularly post pretending to be other people, spam multiple threads, and false flag as people who they aren't. Infamous single trips like Accelspammer probably generated 100x the number of posts as the average user. It has been a long running conspiracy that the FBI or NSA scrapes 4chan. I also know for a fact that companies scrape 4chan: one time I posted a thread about a bad customer service experience I had and the company literally sent me an email saying "We saw your feedback on /g/..." So 22 million views a month means absolutely nothing, it doesn't tell us who is visiting 4chan or how often. 90% of it could be bot traffic. Without naming the mods, we have absolutely no idea how credible they are or if Vice really did get leaked chats (spoiler alert, I don't trust them as far as I can throw them). There are also multiple mods, I don't think the article really explains or justifies how a single one got power over every janitor. Really dubious reporting with a progressive slant as icing and some fearmongering as a cherry on top. Thanks again, Vice!