8chan: The Latest Fearporn DriveGuardian in Hysterics Over Threat of Homeless, Anonymous Shitposters
THE PROBLEM
8chan may have been shut down, but that doesn’t mean we’re safe.
You see, all the people that used 8chan before it was shut down are still out there. They might be on Twitter. They might be on Facebook. They might be ordering coffee at a Starbucks. They might be plotting some sort of far-right apocalypse. They might just be talking about movies on reddit. There’s no way of knowing.
We should all be terribly worried.
At least, according to The Guardian, who headline today:
8chan: ex-users of far-right site flock to new homes across internet
First off, of course, 8chan was not a “far-right site”, it was a site with some “far-right” people on it.
There are hundreds of boards on 8chan, with thousands upon thousands of different posters. Boards could be created by anyone to discuss anything.
The vast majority were dedicated to perfectly ordinary topics. Video games, fashion, cars, movies. There were many much more specific, fetishy, niche and weird…but not “far-right”. The site didn’t have an ideology except “free speech”.
The general shifting of “free speech” from something we all take for granted to being described as a “far-right agenda” is one of the most worrying trends in modern politics.
The article is actually funny, not least for the total lack of web literacy on display:
Former members of 8chan have scattered across the internet after the far-right site was shut down over the weekend
This is simply ridiculous to anyone who knows anything about the nature of 8chan et al. There are no “members”. That, indeed, is the whole entire point of the place. It is anonymous and temporary. No usernames, no registration, no “membership”.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
