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How Japan's Biggest BBS Keeps Things Simple

zedsville points out an article at Wired proving that plenty of people (at least in Japan) are willing to brave BBS environments without all the fancy layers to screen out spam or online provocateurs: "It's a profile of Hiroyuki Nishimura, the man behind the Japanese site 2channel. Nishimura set up the simplistic BBS in 1999, when he was an exchange student in the USA. The site has no registration or web handles or moderating, no mechanisms to filter out flames and trollish behavior, and no mechanisms to help users find the most insightful comments and topics. But this ugly, lo-res site gets about 500 million pageviews a month. Nishimura doesn't police the contents of posts to his bulletin board, which has resulted in numerous libel claims. 'I used to show up in court,' he says. 'Then one day I overslept, and nothing happened. So I stopped going.' Nishimura has lost about 50 lawsuits and owes millions of dollars in penalties, which he has no intention of paying. 'If the verdict mandates deleting things, I'll do it,' he says. 'I just haven't complied with demands to pay money. Would a cell phone carrier feel responsible when somebody receives a threatening phone call?'"

3 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. 5 million unique hits per months ...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    why is this news?
    i mean .. i dont know this site. is it important?
    was it hacked?

  2. Re:Japan just likes it 1.0 by Chang · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    People like to post and read from their keitai - simple sites work best.

  3. This just in: japan afraid of change by CogDissident · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Honestly now. I thought the Japanese were the most fast paced and culturally accepting society when it comes to change... Wait, no, I was thinking of any country EXCEPT Japan.

    (and all those dictatorships, but shh, this is a joke, it makes it less funny to mention those.)