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> And by fostering this environment you're providing cover for atrocities. To be clear, I am not "fostering [an] environment" or defending 4chan here at all, I

> And by fostering this environment you're providing cover for atrocities. To be clear, I am not "fostering [an] environment" or defending 4chan here at all, I am just pointing out that this is a misunderstanding of what the culture of 4chan is. Like the person I was replying to, I somehow doubt you have spent any time there. Where on the site are you even talking about? /g/? /lgbt/? /k/? /mu/? /pol/? /bant/? /sci/? /b/? Even though they share the cultural features I was talking about, they are quite distinct otherwise. Many people read threads on a topical board like /mu/ or /g/ and haven't spent any time on the more offensive or stomach-churning parts of the site like /pol/ or /b/. > Because not everyone is there just to have a fun time saying slurs I resent this implication that merely because I suggest people understand the things they are talking about that I am on 4chan using slurs. This style of argumentation would be right at home on the worst boards of 4chan... > it is an actual site of conversion and radicalization towards their goals 4chan is not a person, it doesn't have "goals" or opinions any more than heterogenous online communities like eg HN or Reddit do. I would agree that 4chan as a community does house more polarized opinions than most online communities, though that seems to be largely a function of not having upvotes and allowing anonymous posting. To your overall point, that this is a value difference between myself and the GP, I fully disagree. I am making a factual (and not value-centric) claim that toxicity towards anyone posting on the site is an integral part of the culture there.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
I stopped using 4chan 15 years ago when I realized that a huge portion of the people on there are not merely roleplaying nazis, but honestly hold the views they obscure behind the atmosphere of joking. Up to date knowledge of their internal jargon and shibboleths doesn't discredit my view of the site, it's still right there and it doesn't take long to confirm that my worst opinions of it from 2008 are still valid now. I never claimed that the site itself has opinions or goals. But its members do! and they emerge in the patterns of interaction and rhetoric eg its culture.
- mtrower 3y ago
  > I stopped using 4chan 15 years ago when I realized that a huge portion of the people on there are not merely roleplaying nazis, but honestly hold the views they obscure behind the atmosphere of joking. How is that not an integral component of equal access?
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    "Wolves and sheep are equally welcome in this establishment."
    - mtrower 3y ago
      XD yes. I realize you’re probably trying to disagree with me, but, yes.
      - emodendroket 3y ago
        The sheep are not going to visit in this scenario because a free-for-all is comfortable for the wolves and not for the sheep. I think this is pretty straightforward with a moment of thought. Here’s another thought: avowed Nazis are not, strictly speaking, stopped from participating in any pseudonymous forum, if they can keep their views on that subject to themselves. Why is this model less “open” or “egalitarian” than one where they’re allowed to barge into conversations and start spewing that stuff?
        mtrower 3y ago
        > The sheep are not going to visit in this scenario because a free-for-all is comfortable for the wolves and not for the sheep. I think this is pretty straightforward with a moment of thought. Yes, of course. It did seem the clear intent behind your words. Arm the sheep and it may be a different matter, no? Or, as you say, the sheep could simply not show up if they don't like their odds. I'm really not making a value judgement on the situation, just saying that everyone is handed equal tools here. > Here’s another thought: avowed Nazis are not, strictly speaking, stopped from participating in any pseudonymous forum, if they can keep their views on that subject to themselves. Why is this model less “open” or “egalitarian” than one where they’re allowed to barge into conversations and start spewing that stuff? Well, the easy answer is that it's less open because it is moderated. Perhaps each is open in different, conflicting ways? I'm not really prepared to perform an analysis on the ethics of each, and please don't take my response as necessarily expressing a preference for the former. Insofar as I spend time on any social platform, it is mostly HN, and mostly because I find the conversation here generally more civil than elsewhere. So in practice, I do seem to express a preference for the latter.
- torginus 3y ago
  I'm not super familiar with internet history, but wasn't the 4chan/reddit crowd basically the same around 2008? As in mostly anti Bush-establishment, lefty, pro-freedom, 'rational' anti-religion atheists. I'd say the most of my (admittedly fuzzy) memories of that era of 4chan political activism were Aaron Swartz/Anonymous.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    Probably largely the same people but cultures can change even if none of the membership does. Anyway two points: - The vicious racism was already enough of a consistent thing in the 2000s that I clocked it as essentially a movement at that point. They always claimed to be joking but even then it was clear that many of them were not. Regardless of what other political affiliations were commonly held there at that time. But I think you got it pretty close, they weren't that politically coherent back then, and certainly not leftist so much as just anti-bush/anti-republican. - Gamergate was a permanent rearrangement, finally giving a coherent "them" to orient a reactionary antipolitical movement against. I think the sharp ramp up in aggressiveness and frankly violent imagery filtered a lot of people out, while simultaneously inviting people in, creating a new overlap with pre-existing and nascent reactionary groups like (self-identified I don't mean this as an insult per se) reddit incels. So having kept an eye on it for a while now, I think it has meaningfully changed since 2008, even if a lot of the members are the same and many of the cultural signifiers are intact. Just for one it is much more coherent as an allegiance or identity, as you can see by the dozens of people coming out to passionately defend it in these comments.
swozey 3y ago
I find it absolutely ridiculous that you keep telling people that they haven't visited 4chan and are wrong. This is hackernews. Most of us are in our 30s and were perpetually online during the rise of 4chan and are not ignorant whatsoever to what chan boards are like. The last time I went there it was full of CP and I lose all respect for people who use that site no matter how you try to spin it.
- throwaway675309 3y ago
  I'm in my 30s and I don't know which boards you frequented to see so much CP because that was not my experience at all. Most of the criticism around the alleged tons of CP seemed to come from people who had an ideological ax to grind against the site in general. Sounds like a "you problem."
  - swozey 3y ago
    Yeah, you're right. We all have an axe to grind against 4chan. We're all making up that we saw CP on it. I'm a former Goon. I've been all over the trashy parts of the internet. It doesn't benefit me whatsoever to lie about seeing CP on 4chan. I even remember exactly what the picture I saw the last time I went to it looked like. It is seared into my memory. That was my last visit to that trash site.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - wpietri 3y ago
      My sympathies. I never spent any time on 4chan. But between doing some desktop publishing and helping friends with abuse on the first web-based chat, I saw a bunch of things I could not unsee. It took me maybe 15 years for that stuff to not come back as what they call "involuntary autobiographical memories". It has now faded to the point that I can't bring the full images back at all, just hazy, untraumatizing vague versions. I hope you get there soon!
    - mtrower 3y ago
brookst 3y ago
Everyone has been on 4chan. That's a weak way to try to discredit people whose opinions you disagree with. You act like you're being an anthropologist, but you're just apologizing for a culture we all know and which does demonstrable harm in the world. It's not "polarized opinions", it's celebrating terrible things. You know that, we know that.
- mtrower 3y ago
  Everyone has been on slashdot too, right? I mean come on, it's slashdot. ...except realistically, even though I'm in the age and interest group, I've been there like, a single-digit number of times --- which totally qualifies me as an expert on it, right?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

giraffe_lady 3y ago

I stopped using 4chan 15 years ago when I realized that a huge portion of the people on there are not merely roleplaying nazis, but honestly hold the views they obscure behind the atmosphere of joking. Up to date knowledge of their internal jargon and shibboleths doesn't discredit my view of the site, it's still right there and it doesn't take long to confirm that my worst opinions of it from 2008 are still valid now. I never claimed that the site itself has opinions or goals. But its members do! and they emerge in the patterns of interaction and rhetoric eg its culture.

mtrower 3y ago
> I stopped using 4chan 15 years ago when I realized that a huge portion of the people on there are not merely roleplaying nazis, but honestly hold the views they obscure behind the atmosphere of joking. How is that not an integral component of equal access?
- emodendroket 3y ago
  "Wolves and sheep are equally welcome in this establishment."
  - mtrower 3y ago
    XD yes. I realize you’re probably trying to disagree with me, but, yes.
    - emodendroket 3y ago
      The sheep are not going to visit in this scenario because a free-for-all is comfortable for the wolves and not for the sheep. I think this is pretty straightforward with a moment of thought. Here’s another thought: avowed Nazis are not, strictly speaking, stopped from participating in any pseudonymous forum, if they can keep their views on that subject to themselves. Why is this model less “open” or “egalitarian” than one where they’re allowed to barge into conversations and start spewing that stuff?
      - mtrower 3y ago
        > The sheep are not going to visit in this scenario because a free-for-all is comfortable for the wolves and not for the sheep. I think this is pretty straightforward with a moment of thought. Yes, of course. It did seem the clear intent behind your words. Arm the sheep and it may be a different matter, no? Or, as you say, the sheep could simply not show up if they don't like their odds. I'm really not making a value judgement on the situation, just saying that everyone is handed equal tools here. > Here’s another thought: avowed Nazis are not, strictly speaking, stopped from participating in any pseudonymous forum, if they can keep their views on that subject to themselves. Why is this model less “open” or “egalitarian” than one where they’re allowed to barge into conversations and start spewing that stuff? Well, the easy answer is that it's less open because it is moderated. Perhaps each is open in different, conflicting ways? I'm not really prepared to perform an analysis on the ethics of each, and please don't take my response as necessarily expressing a preference for the former. Insofar as I spend time on any social platform, it is mostly HN, and mostly because I find the conversation here generally more civil than elsewhere. So in practice, I do seem to express a preference for the latter.
torginus 3y ago
I'm not super familiar with internet history, but wasn't the 4chan/reddit crowd basically the same around 2008? As in mostly anti Bush-establishment, lefty, pro-freedom, 'rational' anti-religion atheists. I'd say the most of my (admittedly fuzzy) memories of that era of 4chan political activism were Aaron Swartz/Anonymous.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  Probably largely the same people but cultures can change even if none of the membership does. Anyway two points: - The vicious racism was already enough of a consistent thing in the 2000s that I clocked it as essentially a movement at that point. They always claimed to be joking but even then it was clear that many of them were not. Regardless of what other political affiliations were commonly held there at that time. But I think you got it pretty close, they weren't that politically coherent back then, and certainly not leftist so much as just anti-bush/anti-republican. - Gamergate was a permanent rearrangement, finally giving a coherent "them" to orient a reactionary antipolitical movement against. I think the sharp ramp up in aggressiveness and frankly violent imagery filtered a lot of people out, while simultaneously inviting people in, creating a new overlap with pre-existing and nascent reactionary groups like (self-identified I don't mean this as an insult per se) reddit incels. So having kept an eye on it for a while now, I think it has meaningfully changed since 2008, even if a lot of the members are the same and many of the cultural signifiers are intact. Just for one it is much more coherent as an allegiance or identity, as you can see by the dozens of people coming out to passionately defend it in these comments.

swozey 3y ago

I find it absolutely ridiculous that you keep telling people that they haven't visited 4chan and are wrong. This is hackernews. Most of us are in our 30s and were perpetually online during the rise of 4chan and are not ignorant whatsoever to what chan boards are like. The last time I went there it was full of CP and I lose all respect for people who use that site no matter how you try to spin it.

throwaway675309 3y ago
I'm in my 30s and I don't know which boards you frequented to see so much CP because that was not my experience at all. Most of the criticism around the alleged tons of CP seemed to come from people who had an ideological ax to grind against the site in general. Sounds like a "you problem."
- swozey 3y ago
  Yeah, you're right. We all have an axe to grind against 4chan. We're all making up that we saw CP on it. I'm a former Goon. I've been all over the trashy parts of the internet. It doesn't benefit me whatsoever to lie about seeing CP on 4chan. I even remember exactly what the picture I saw the last time I went to it looked like. It is seared into my memory. That was my last visit to that trash site.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - wpietri 3y ago
    My sympathies. I never spent any time on 4chan. But between doing some desktop publishing and helping friends with abuse on the first web-based chat, I saw a bunch of things I could not unsee. It took me maybe 15 years for that stuff to not come back as what they call "involuntary autobiographical memories". It has now faded to the point that I can't bring the full images back at all, just hazy, untraumatizing vague versions. I hope you get there soon!
  - mtrower 3y ago

brookst 3y ago

Everyone has been on 4chan. That's a weak way to try to discredit people whose opinions you disagree with. You act like you're being an anthropologist, but you're just apologizing for a culture we all know and which does demonstrable harm in the world. It's not "polarized opinions", it's celebrating terrible things. You know that, we know that.

mtrower 3y ago
Everyone has been on slashdot too, right? I mean come on, it's slashdot. ...except realistically, even though I'm in the age and interest group, I've been there like, a single-digit number of times --- which totally qualifies me as an expert on it, right?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]