Why is there so much fearmongering around 4chan? Everyone that doesn't use it seems to think of it as an anomaly; when it is nothing but a somewhat "radical" (that too only some boards) social site. Also banning & doing something along those lines to the users of 4chan is the shittiest idea of all time.
Because it and 8chan are racist shitholes that have produced numerous mass murderers, most notably the Christchurch murderer that killed 51 people at a mosque.
I don't think such sites "produce" mass murderers; they certainly contribute to the accleeration of their extremity--I don't deny that--but no site can "produce" mass murderers, there has to be some preeminent malignity present in the person.
It's interesting that your more nuanced take is barely breaking even compared to the "video games cause violence" type inflammatory take you replied to.
We all came here to make fun of the dumb twitter post and then comments with the same energy are being applauded.
I think you're arguing for a distinction without a difference. If the seed of malignancy would not have grown without finding fertile soil, how can you prove it existed? Why is it more fitting to blame this metaphysical and unknowable thing rather than these very real cesspits?
I don't think the disposition to evil needs a "fertile soil". For instance, there are evil men in convents--and in quite a high degree too--that harm others in order to break the monotonicity of their life; now, would you say a convent is a "fertile soil" for growth of evil--should be the contrary. The artificial spite is a product of, as I've mentioned, a boring and monotonous life, and it so happens the easiest mode available to break this is harm towards others.
In case of natural malignity, the influence on the actions lies not in something mundane as boredom but other natural causes--be it from parental abuse, &c. but I concur that I've no scientific knowledge in this field. And, thus I believe that the ones that hold malignity through nature (in contrast with the artificial one) are able to create an environment that accomplishes, or perhaps, breaks, as I've said above, their disorder's whims. And the chans happen to be a pre-existing place with like minded people that nurture each other's "seeds", but even in the lack of these imaginary soils, the seeds will grow without any problem.
4chan is so full of teenage racists, incels and general dipshits that I can't help but think anyone who defends it is also a racist, incel, or generally a dipshit who hasn't graduated high school yet. Posts like the OP here are the exception, not the rule.
Yep, 4chan is the Nazi bar of the Internet, and cherry picking an example of innocent shitposting means nothing.
It had its moments, twenty years ago, but all the worthwhile anons left ages ago.
There's even a fairly famous quote from a 4channer about it.
"Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe they're in good company." -Descartes né Anon
Of course, Anon still missed the real lesson.
There are always far, far, fewer people "just joking around" than the good people in the room want to assume.
It's kinda funny because even all the other boards on 4chan make fun of /pol/. The people that use 4chan outside of /pol/ are very aware of what goes on in that board. /x/ is the dopest board on the Internet if you like sci-fi stuff and the whole website originated around anime to begin with, so /a/ probably one of the biggest boards still.
Last time I went there, a while back I admit (before it became mainstream knowledge), it wasn't moderated out at all.
It wasnt nudes (although didn't look very deep) but they were posting little girl and salivating.
Oof I used to be a regular on r9k and now I cringe so hard about it. Thank God it was anonymous.
I was going through a tough time and the people there accepted me and engaged with my posts. In hindsight I think people just connected with my anger, but the venting was helpful.
At some point a friend saw my laptop and said "holy shit you're asking 4chan for advice, hahaha what the fuck is wrong with you" and she laughed until she was wheezing, and I never went back on again.
The /tg/ board was the source of some of the greatest tabletop RPG content I ever saw in the 2010s, really great discussions and whole homebrew systems born out of threads that just pitch cool ideas. Of course it came with the same veneer of snark and shock comments as the rest of 4chan but that was on every site in the 2010s. I haven't been back there in a long while so I can't speak to it these days.
I still remember that story about how someone's boyfriend was radicalized by 4chan and they noticed by "checking his 4chan account" and I think talked about PMs lol
People are dumbass normies who fear anyone slightly different than the mould. You don’t have facebook and instagram? Fucking weird. You don’t know the latest influencer trend? Outcast. You think capitalism is evil and the normalcy is harmful to society? Terrorist.