There are many, many small forums where people can air the most controversial opinions--I don't disagree. But the fact that there is one MASSIVE one in the publ

There are many, many small forums where people can air the most controversial opinions--I don't disagree. But the fact that there is one MASSIVE one in the public consciousness means that people aren't automatically filtered into these mass, heavily monitored and controlled forums like reddit, facebook, instagram, etc. but instead can easily find a place where nobodies opinion, voice, or resistance to what is considered polite and "acceptable," and speak there. In the old days what you're saying is true, but we're not in the old days, we're in the days where everyone uses the internet and the internet is vastly profitable. Where corporations, the state, the news-media, relentlessly seek to manipulate public opinion to their own aims. In all that, something as remarkable as the continued existence of 4chan stands directly opposed to power and everything in society that seeks to regulate and control behavior and discourse.