4 ms·

I see a lot of hate for 4chan here. Why? I’ve never used it, know it by reputation, but not sure why there’s so much hate for it.

wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
[flagged]
- GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
  Certainly has nothing to do with the toxic userbase of at least some of the boards
  - wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
    I bet you 90% of the haters have never even been to the website.
    - GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
      i don't know why you'd bet that
      - wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
        because my religious redneck family thinks 4chan is a bunch of hackers who hate the elderly because fox news mentioned "ok boomer" meme once. because ive met many people in real life who think its evil but have never been on it or have even seen it. every normie hates 4chan, but none of them have never been there.
Philpax 2y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan#Controversies_and_harassment_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan#Controversies_and_harass...
- brigandish 2y ago
  Honestly, that didn't help. There's a wide type of "controversy" there, and I don't see how 4chan are inherent to any of them, they could've been done via any forum. Or maybe I missed something, specificity would be good.
  - Loocid 2y ago
    But they weren't done via any forum, they were done via 4chan. The community makes a forum.
    - brigandish 2y ago
      It's a well known forum with a lot of users, to blame the "4chan community" would seem to be either a fallacy of composition or, ironically, of division, depending how the claim is laid out. I'm also not sure how the site admins would stop them?
wewxjfq 2y ago
This still stings: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373
- beeflet 2y ago
  made me LOL
- karn97 2y ago
  Even more true in 2025
- 1231231231e 2y ago
  >Ask HN: Why is nobody using [obscure niche technology from the 80s]? >Why [popular technology] is [unexpected opinion]
- weberer 2y ago
  >Why it's impossible to use PHP even though millions of people are doing great things with it
ozmodiar 2y ago
I hope this isn't too contentious but I'll try to cover most things. I've posted this a few times, but I checked out 4Chan about twice in the early days and saw CSAM both times and it gave me personally a visceral hatred of the site. I've heard it got better/that's not representative but it's a hard thing to shake. The origin of the site is also supposedly Moot getting kicked off SomethingAwful for posting 'lolicon' (child anime porn). They've also gone after and doxxed pedophiles though, so the sites relationship with that sort of content is... complicated. I think most of the worst ended up moving to 4Chan clones quite awhile ago because it really splintered again at some point and became known as the cleaner Chan board. It's also known for its extremely abrasive mildy sociopathic culture and 4Chan posters have a very samey 'posting voice' where if you don't like it you can hate it. It permeates a lot of the internet, but 4chan is kind of seen as the epicenter. I think it also gets blamed for a lot of negative internet culture like doxxing and choosing targets to harass, although I'm not sure how much of that was actually 4Chan. I think most of those people moved on to Kiwifarms. 4Chan probably gets some hate for things that other Chan sites have like Qanon in a sort of 'you started this' way. And finally the politics are complicated. It actually used to be slightly left leaning or at least libertarian or anarchist, but over the years pol in particular has been known to be hard right wing. It definitely seems like they had a shift in political tone for the (IMO) worst at some point. Personally I won't hide that I'm a hater and an unapologetic curmudgeonly old man, but that's my perception. On the other hand if you think the CP stuff is overblown, don't care about the negatives because there are apparently good boards there that are insulated, or are just hard right yourself then it is one of the last major discussion boards on the net. Some of that's probably out of date (like I said I gave up on it pretty quickly) but I'd wager most people with negative opinions are thinking of one or more of those. I'd be interested if any haters have other reasons.
- whatevertestal 2y ago
  [flagged]
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
  > It actually used to be slightly left leaning or at least libertarian or anarchist, but over the years pol in particular has been known to be hard right wing. If your bar doesn't kick out nazis, your bar becomes the nazi hangout. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
throwaway743 2y ago
Because people think /pol/ is 4chan, and it's easier to think that and what others say about something than to invest time into looking into something they were uninterested in looking into to begin with

wegfawefgawefg 2y ago

[flagged]

GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
Certainly has nothing to do with the toxic userbase of at least some of the boards
- wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
  I bet you 90% of the haters have never even been to the website.
  - GuinansEyebrows 2y ago
    i don't know why you'd bet that
    - wegfawefgawefg 2y ago
      because my religious redneck family thinks 4chan is a bunch of hackers who hate the elderly because fox news mentioned "ok boomer" meme once. because ive met many people in real life who think its evil but have never been on it or have even seen it. every normie hates 4chan, but none of them have never been there.

Philpax 2y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan#Controversies_and_harassment_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4chan#Controversies_and_harass...

brigandish 2y ago
Honestly, that didn't help. There's a wide type of "controversy" there, and I don't see how 4chan are inherent to any of them, they could've been done via any forum. Or maybe I missed something, specificity would be good.
- Loocid 2y ago
  But they weren't done via any forum, they were done via 4chan. The community makes a forum.
  - brigandish 2y ago
    It's a well known forum with a lot of users, to blame the "4chan community" would seem to be either a fallacy of composition or, ironically, of division, depending how the claim is laid out. I'm also not sure how the site admins would stop them?

wewxjfq 2y ago

This still stings: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6747373

beeflet 2y ago
made me LOL
karn97 2y ago
Even more true in 2025
1231231231e 2y ago
>Ask HN: Why is nobody using [obscure niche technology from the 80s]? >Why [popular technology] is [unexpected opinion]
weberer 2y ago
>Why it's impossible to use PHP even though millions of people are doing great things with it

ozmodiar 2y ago

I hope this isn't too contentious but I'll try to cover most things. I've posted this a few times, but I checked out 4Chan about twice in the early days and saw CSAM both times and it gave me personally a visceral hatred of the site. I've heard it got better/that's not representative but it's a hard thing to shake. The origin of the site is also supposedly Moot getting kicked off SomethingAwful for posting 'lolicon' (child anime porn). They've also gone after and doxxed pedophiles though, so the sites relationship with that sort of content is... complicated. I think most of the worst ended up moving to 4Chan clones quite awhile ago because it really splintered again at some point and became known as the cleaner Chan board. It's also known for its extremely abrasive mildy sociopathic culture and 4Chan posters have a very samey 'posting voice' where if you don't like it you can hate it. It permeates a lot of the internet, but 4chan is kind of seen as the epicenter. I think it also gets blamed for a lot of negative internet culture like doxxing and choosing targets to harass, although I'm not sure how much of that was actually 4Chan. I think most of those people moved on to Kiwifarms. 4Chan probably gets some hate for things that other Chan sites have like Qanon in a sort of 'you started this' way. And finally the politics are complicated. It actually used to be slightly left leaning or at least libertarian or anarchist, but over the years pol in particular has been known to be hard right wing. It definitely seems like they had a shift in political tone for the (IMO) worst at some point. Personally I won't hide that I'm a hater and an unapologetic curmudgeonly old man, but that's my perception. On the other hand if you think the CP stuff is overblown, don't care about the negatives because there are apparently good boards there that are insulated, or are just hard right yourself then it is one of the last major discussion boards on the net. Some of that's probably out of date (like I said I gave up on it pretty quickly) but I'd wager most people with negative opinions are thinking of one or more of those. I'd be interested if any haters have other reasons.

whatevertestal 2y ago
[flagged]
sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
> It actually used to be slightly left leaning or at least libertarian or anarchist, but over the years pol in particular has been known to be hard right wing. If your bar doesn't kick out nazis, your bar becomes the nazi hangout. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

throwaway743 2y ago

Because people think /pol/ is 4chan, and it's easier to think that and what others say about something than to invest time into looking into something they were uninterested in looking into to begin with