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Interview: Ask Christopher "moot" Poole About 4chan and Social Media
Having started 4chan when he was 15, Christopher Poole, better known as "moot", is indirectly responsible for almost every meme you've ever seen. The group "Anonymous" originated on 4chan and has since engaged in a number of well-publicized publicity stunts and distributed denial-of-service attacks. Thanks to users gaming the system, moot was famously voted the world's most influential person of 2008 in an open internet poll conducted by Time magazine. He is an advocate of online anonymity and speaks on the importance of privacy online to foster creativity and open discussion. moot has agreed to answer your questions about 4chan, social media, and privacy. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one per post.
Fucking magnets. How do they work?
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
How badly do you think it sucks?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Fucking Magnets!!! shit I missed.
If this whole thread is not AC I will be very disappointed...
Canvas (site, not the HTML5 element) and DrawQuest were killed earlier this year. I used it briefly in its beta form and thought it was a neat idea. Any chance you could elaborate on why it was shut down? The e-mail I got was brief and vague -- were you facing copyright issues? Monetization problems? Image space issues? Care to spill your lessons learned?
My work here is dung.
Do you have any plans to shutdown 4chan?
Is there any post that you thought went too far?
Why does setting up a website that's basically an English version of 2ch make you on expert on what its users do with it? If I want to know how cars work, I'm not going to learn much from the guy who invented (copied, really) the wheel.
We're super big fans of C&Ds here and I would like to know what happened with your C&D to Moot.it. How did it come about and what was the resolution?
My work here is dung.
What is the impact of adblockers on your website?
How much money have you made from 4chan?
Well, I did have a question for moot. But then I realized that it was a moot question.
Obviously there's a lot of discussion of unsavory things that 4chan has done. You obviously haven't shut down the site, but overall, do you think 4chan has a net positive or negative effect on the internet as a whole?
You founded 4chan. Care to elaborate on any of the undoubtedly countless times shit has gotten real?
You know, things you wouldn't tell WSJ when you were seeking solvency but are juicy crazy stories?
My work here is dung.
How many times have you given 4chan poster/visitor data to the authorities, or do you simply allow them to examine logs in real time?
How do you plan to respond to this threat?
http://shutdown4chan.tumblr.com
Is there any way to save 4chan?
Do you ever feel responsible or bad for all the lives 4chan have ruined?
I mean there's a lot of anons that have a very unhealthy relationship to their favourite board and spends most of their waking time posting.
How often to you get political pressure to take down /b/, and 4chan as a whole? Also, what is your favorite board?
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has it's limits" - Albert Einstein
you were not behind the celeb pussy fest?
Having webm videos on 4chan, what do you think of usage of plugins like flash on websites in 2014, like / for. video?
PDF support is already included on some board, like the papercraft board, but I think it would be a good edition to the /diy/ board as many instructions and useful books are in PDF. Could you please enable it?
What was the first post you made on the internet?
Did 4chan brought you more happiness than pain/anxiety since it's beginning ? How is it going today?
Thanks to "The Fappening" event in the last couple of days 4chan has gone mainstream in newspapers, tv, and other media.
What are your feelings about it?
Do you get annoyed by the fact that whenever someone on your website does something stupid the finger of blame is pointed at you, since your users are all anonymous? Does that influence your stance on being anonymous online?
When will you start the mass banning of bronies on /mlp/ and beyond for shits and giggles like you did with furries once?
What is your take on the censoring of /v/ during the Quinngate scandal? Was the deletion of threads a coordinated effort, or rather the work of one rogue mod?
How did you get so zyzzbrah swole? I remember you used to be a skinny little kid that looked like you never lifted anything heavier than a glass of skim milk
Mootles, how scared are you of being assrammed by jew lawyers?
A common mode of operation seems to be this:
1) A Bad Thing (TM) happens. Recent example: Leaking of private photos.
2) The culprit is identified in real life by someone doing "detective work". E.g. identifying BluntMastermind as Bryan Hamade
3) Anonymous people release a shitstorm on that person, through harassment and stalking, in real life.
Step 2 opens the evidence to the public, which is good. However, in step 3, the actor is not the police/justice system, but vigilantes who take the punishing into their own hand. The rights of the accused are completely ignored, and he/she has no way of defense. A number of people who have, innocently become victims of this, have told their story.
What do you think of this development of side-stepping the justice system, and online vigilantes? Is it due to disappointment in the police and justice system? Is it human nature that comes out in large, anonymous groups (Elias Canetti comes to mind)?
Now I am not arguing against anonymity. Anonymity online certainly has a important place on the Internet. However I would like to understand why this is happening, and whether you think cybermobs automatically arise with Anonymity.
do you know how to shot web?
Has the NSA ever demanded anything from you? As the creator of what is quite possibly the most popular and influential message board of the internet era, I'm sure the raw power and insanity of the userbase worries the powers that be.
Even though 4Chan can rightly be considered the black hole of the internet, it can also be argued that 4Chan is one of the greatest bastions of free speech we have. If enough oppositional clout arises to seriously threaten a shutdown of 4Chan, is there a defense plan? Or a back-up plan? I would hate to see it go away without some sort of fight, or a way to resurrect it somewhere else.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
I thought joining an open source project was an arcane endeavor. Then I tried checking out 4chan.
Sure, I found some nice titty pictures, but I still don't understand how it's a community. How did anonymous sprout there? How do people interact there except completely randomly? How does one go from "wtf?" to experienced user?
On the topic of social media and the fickle nature of the herd:
Why do you think it is that users migrate from one forum to another so quickly (e.g. from Slashdot to Digg, from Digg to Reddit)?
How (relevant do you think Slashdot is, these days? What possessed you to come here instead of an AMA on Reddit?
Can you make any predictions about 4chan's future, e.g. when/how do you see users migrating away from your platform, or is there something so unique that you believe it will maintain relevance indefinitely?
Why the goddamn dmca policy? Is it because of the fappening and they all lawyered up? We love you
Hello there moot
As we all know you are a self made millionaire, does it bother you that a incident like this is directly generating you more ad revenue?
That NSA and GCHQ are able to monitor 4Chan and track who the "anonymous" posters are?
Best Slashdot Co
Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
My guess is psychopath. He's just too smart to be a politician and doesn't dress well enough to be a CEO.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Do you think it is or will be possible to run a board effectively immune from any nation state's laws that is truly anonymous, or at least to an extent that prosecution or harassment of users would be impractical?
Adding to that: how do you envision moderation on a board such as this?
Dear moot, it has been hard to make contact with you.
I have already submitted all my info twice, including credit card number, full name and address thou there is no signal of the confirmation email and I can't login.
I would like to see this fixed ASAP otherwise I'm going back to tumblr.
Regards.
did u tk him 2 da bar|?
How does it feel to know you sit at the head of the Internet hate machine?
Also, when do janitor apps open again?
There's been a lot of talk about the 4chan moderation lately and a lot of users seem to feel like the moderation has been too heavy on several boards, especially regarding certain subjects. There's also been a lot of accusations of there being too many SJW and normalfag janitors who supposedly make the boards more friendly towards their ideals and their kind of people (the thought of which, for obvious reasons, easily upsets a lot of 4channers).
What is your take on these accusations, do you agree that the moderation has taken a turn to be more inclusive and if so, is it a conscious effort? If not, what do you think about the current state of moderation and do you have any plans for the future? Heck, are you even involved in any moderating decisions?
Now that CAPTCHAs have been in place for some time now, do you think you'll ever unban Tor IPs from 4chan, for true anonymity?
Honestly, it is the pinnacle of free speech, I can say this because your guaranteed to be offended by its content within the first page. But that means people are discussing issues openly and honestly. And usually it forces you to think. So why does /pol/ from time to time get targeted by social justice warriors who have been made janitors and mods, and it keeps happening? Or is this just a perception of the average /pol/itician between posting the latest Holocaust denial 'fact', and complaining about Yeropoors in general?
You claim to be an advocate for privacy and anonymity but people seem to constantly be using 4chan to invade others privacy, doxing them and, most recently, releasing large quantities of previous private photos. While I understand you're not directly responsible for the actions of your users, does it bother you that people are using the forum you created to do things that appear to violate your core beliefs and the reasons you created it in the first place?
... the cesspool of the internet?
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1...
http://gawker.com/5693962/4cha...
How does it feel to be answering questions by over-the-hill tech nerds about something they don't understand and revile?
What exactly do you do to limit any liability you may have for the content posted on /b/? Particularly, CP.
Also, can you finally tell us, who was phone?
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
By giving it a bad name?
Huh? He's not Ayn Rand.
>:)
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Canv.as never caught on quite the way 4chan did, despite that the users were mostly from 4chan and the content (memes) was slightly similar. Why do you think 4chan has thrived while Canv.as didn't?
You've mentioned elsewhere that 4chan runs on FreeBSD servers. What was the impetus to use FreeBSD over Linux?
when you realized your audience/community had grown into a part of popular culture, unlikely to ever go away?
If he's such an advocate of online anonymity, then how do we know that it's really him?
Any chance of another /fur/ board?
I know this /. topic is just for controversy and "laffs" because of the Fappening so I'm just going to post links to the classic Morning Glory Comics archives because they are so offensive and hilarious. Here you go Internet:
http://morningglory.excision-g...
http://lolokaust.com/morning/a...
We all know that you're going to get a lot of questions about 4chan on this post, but, while you're gracing us with your valuable time, I'd like to ask something rather unrelated to 4chan, its acclaimed anonymity, its purpose versus its usage, etc.:
Ooh ooh
We're no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do I
A full commitment's what I'm thinking of
You wouldn't get this from any other guy
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you understand
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
We've known each other for so long
Your heart's been aching but
You're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on
We know the game and we're gonna play it
And if you ask me how I'm feeling
Don't tell me you're too blind to see
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
(Ooh, give you up)
(Ooh, give you up)
(Ooh)
Never gonna give, never gonna give
(Give you up)
(Ooh)
Never gonna give, never gonna give
(Give you up)
We've know each other for so long
Your heart's been aching but
You're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on
We know the game and we're gonna play it
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling
Gotta make you understand
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
Does it bother you that 4chan has pretty much become a hotbed for child porn and other pedophile activities?
It's now muut.com, so I guess they did cease and desist. Isn't that a little hypocritical though? Someone who started a board for the ideal of free speech and sharing and then he sues someone for using a common dictionary word that just so happens to coincide with a USERNAME he chose. SMH. Tool, pure and simple.
When are you going to lift my ban?
Have gnu, will travel.
I hear that, as of right now, posting one of the noodies of Jennifer Lawrence is an autoban ticket. As far as I know posting one without modifying it a little is impossible... Why? I know that you value the "organized anarchy" and self moderation of 4chan in general, and /b/ in particular, and I do understand the necessity of at least making sure that no CP is posted there (who am I kidding?) and I will not question that. But don't you think that the autoban on JLaw noodies might be the start of a trend? What will happen next when X decides to force your hand and ask for an autoban on his images too since, after all, JLaw already did it.
What are your thoughts on the "Quinnspiracy"?
I think the bizarre thing about 4chan is how pretty much no normal people know what it is, in spite of having a massive influence in our culture over the past several years.
Massive...I don't think that word means what you think it means. Unless you mean massively inane?
Whilst I respect your support of online anonymity, why do you insist on keeping records of all posts and their owners details for indefinite periods of time? Surely, anonymity extends to the government, not just the general public. Why must my, and everyone else's, details be freely available to any US governmental department that wishes to have them, especially as I'm not a US citizen?
While 4chan may be a cesspool of filth and depravity I have found some beautiful and interesting things I would have never known existed. I know it's a matter of taste, but what do you think the ratio of garbage to worthwhile content is on the site as a whole? Which board has the highest garbage content and which has the highest worthwhile content?
-AlPhAbEt
Has 4chan made the world a better or a worse place, and why do you feel that way?
I used to think 4chan was a single group of users that could never be dissolved. I figured if the site ever shutdown for some reason, someone would just make a new site to replace it. Now I'm not so sure.
What if you permanently took down 4chan, right now. Do you think that the user base would recongregate on another website or message board?
Or do you think they would just spread out to separate corners of the Internet?
Sup fag?
I accidentally the question.
i raff i ruse,
An hero, LULZ.
Crap. While fluent in LOLcat, I need still a Rosetta Stone for speaking /b/.
So here it is in English: /b/? /b/ generates most of the internet's memes. Do you have people studying or have people asked to study how the process works and what will decide between a post or pic having a bottle rocket's life in /b/'s ADD environment and whether it takes wing and flies across the internet?
What sort of study is being done into viral phenomenons and the birth of memes at
It seems somehow that
PS: will quads stop GiggaMoot?
I do not speak for m00t, Anonymous, or anyone else, but I think that here it might possibly be more appropriate to phrase that as "unsavory things that some of 4chan's users have done."
Also, do you wish to be any specific little girl, or is it more of a generic desire? Thanks.
I love you. That is all.
Should private possession of child pornography be legal?
4chan has been a popular high-trafic site for a while now. I'm curious: how many buyout offers have you received from outside parties? Who were they and how much did they offer?
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Is it correct to say that a thread has "Hit Autosage" or "Reached the Bump Limit"?
A lot of interesting and infamous material ends up on 4chan, some of which might be illegal in certain jurisdictions for reasons ranging from copyright infringement to child pornography.
Have any of the 4chan staff/admins think they've found a real honeypot on the site created by a government or corporation with the intent to prosecute or harass 4chan users (or the site/owners itself)? If so, what actions did you take?
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Given an audience of a few million viewers a day, are you proud of the way that /pol/ continues to encourage and legitimize racism, homophobia and anti-semitism across the web?
Between making the world a shittier and more violent place and the repeated instances of vigilantism -how the fuck do you sleep at night?
Do you see some of the things that happened on 4chan in a different light?
Be it fad, image, or rule 34?
Is /b/ screened and moderated directly by a government agency?
Just kidding, I know you can't seriously answer this. I wish you could, though.
I purchased a stereo from your site two weeks ago and the remote control did not come with batteries. Is this an omission, or am I expected to purchase my own?
Have you observed, over the years, a change in the overall attitude that lingers on 4chan? This is beyond just the day to day musings, and time periods where major events were in dicussion (ex... Wiki-leaks in general, 'Collateral Murder' , Arab Spring, Snowden release, etc...) Yes, there's always going to be something major going on, and being discussed, and aside from the daily postings per sub-chan, have you seen an overall temperment change within the visitors over time. I'm talking more subtle nuances here in the attitude on the site, and the repeat visitors that become the 'status quo'.
It would seem to me like you could get a very good idea of just how things are in the connected world, overall, with the freedom that 4chan has allowed over time.
Moot, Can you Triforce?
Why does your website suck?
How long have the FBI and/or other authorities had a back door into 4Chan? Or aren't you permitted to comment.
Please take your SJW bullshit back to Tumblr.
/pol/ doesn't give anything legitimacy because it's fucking /pol/. It was specifically created as a containment board for all the fucking idiots who inhabit /pol/ to go so that they wouldn't shit up the rest of 4chan. /pol/ is a joke, and the delicious multi-layered irony is that both the denizens of /pol/ don't realize it, and that SJW's like you don't realize it.
/pol/ does the exact opposite of what you accuse it of; it's a running gag even on 4chan, and so it strips any and all legitimacy from anything posted there.
Serious question: Although I rarely troll myself, I rather do enjoy reading troll posts, and enjoy trolling if I can get the chance. That said, governments around the world are seriously considering making trolling a criminal offense; some already have. Have you thought about how this might affect 4chan? Or in the case where people post material that is illegal in their or even your hosted countr(ies) have they ever tried to make any kind of sanctions?
Circular logic -your catchphrase is literally meaningless.
It was specifically created as a containment board for all the fucking idiots who inhabit /pol/ to go so that they wouldn't shit up the rest of 4chan.
You know what else would prevent that? Moderation --IE the same reason you don't see actual child porn outside of /b/ (it's posted, but it's also deleted almost immediately).
/pol/ is a joke, and the delicious multi-layered irony is that both the denizens of /pol/ don't realize it, and that SJW's like you don't realize it. /pol/ does the exact opposite of what you accuse it of; it's a running gag even on 4chan, and so it strips any and all legitimacy from anything posted there.
Two points:
Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they’re in good company
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
Your meta-humour argument falls apart becauser regardless of its' intent, /pol/ still hands a bullhorn to people from the radical and violent right wing and gives them access to literally millions of people each and every day. IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WETHER IT IS A JOKE OR NOT THE EFFECT IS THE SAME.
4chan still ..for practical purposes... supports right wing extremism -first in the internet, then in the real world.
It doesn't matter if the five of you who are "in" on the meta joke are laughing; the influence is real, the moral support is real. It doesn't matter whose laughing, they're still shouting their BS to millions of people each day, thereby making the world a more violent place for it.
Sounds like someone needs his diaper changed.
Excuse Mr. Horse, but what were your feelings about that fall?
Dearest Mootykins,
What does Fed cock taste like? How many gallons of Fed cum have you swallowed? Do you imagine yourself to be the little girl while getting throat-fucked?
Love, Anon.
Even though 4Chan can rightly be considered the black hole of the internet
That's actually pretty generous. Usually I hear 4chan referred to in the context of it being another kind of "hole" of the internet.
When did you first consider selling your asshole for money? I mean I know it must've been awhile ago. But please fill us in.
How would you react if 4chan had a mass emigration and moved to... let's say 7chan or such? I've heard OpenChan is becoming more popular.
Why? Why have you forsaken us? WHY MOOT?
Which FBI agent ate out your boy-hole enough for you to become such a sell out to them?
Why on earth doesn't 4chan allow tor submissions if you are such an advocate for online anonymity. The bans doesn't work anyway (proxies) and illegal material is posted all the times. Why should only users with access to vpns, proxies etc. have the ability to truly post anonymously on 4chan? Is this a deal with the fbi/nsa?
That is not how you spell syncopath.
How often do you get contacted by the FBI (or other three letter agency)? Are you on a first name basis with them at this point?
Why must /d/ickgirls share /d/ with other, invariably inferior, fetishes?
Bonus Captcha: slapped. =D
What is your favorite board and why is it /pol/?
Do you know where I can purchase them?
I believe there will be many more b/ros willing to track down a criminal who harms children (or even animals), and much less with far less energy for bullying a teen to death (unless the teen is so stupid that he/she deserves it... - no I'm joking here).
Taking into account all the good and bad things to have been done in the name of 4chan by its anonymous users, the global political situation, internet privacy, human rights and so forth, do you even lift?
Can you share your views and feelings on how the popular culture of b/ros have evolved since this board started?
For instance (and I make up the following, I really don't know):
Would you say that ... ...
- at the begining people posting there were a mix of childish nerds, internet power user, and
- then arround 2005-2006 a nucleus of posters got a solid 4chan centric culture, characterized by such and such
- and after the xxx case 4chan draw enough attention to get a bunch of occasional tourist posters, contaminated by a small but steady stream of deviant cp-esque posts.
- etc
Anyone who has visited the /b/ board cannot help but notice the over representation of pathological personalities. Do you feel that the 4chan /b/ board provides these folks with a form of supervised club house? Ok, they may get up to all forms of undesirable behaviour, but at least it is out in the open and there is some form of supervision (from moderators and others monitoring the board).
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
How did it feel on the 23rd of August 2006, when you betrayed your ideals and sold us out?
We will never forget.
As I typed my other question, I couldn't help but wonder whether you wished there was more (positive) publicity for the other 4chan boards? For example,the folks on /diy/ are incredibly talented and creative and just once it would be nice to read an article covering the positive side of 4chan.
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
Because it sure looks like you spawned a Stand Alone Complex, and that has to feel weird.
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
Settle it once and for all: Who's the real queen of /b/?
Back when you started 4chan, when there was a relatively small number of users, compared to today 4chan as a whole was relatively harmless. It seems like now it's doing more harm than good, promoting cyber-bullying, stalking, some criminal activity, and overall promoting the worst that the Internet has to offer. Since your moderation staff is all volunteer and their performance apparently spotty at best, don't you think that maybe it's time for it to either change completely, or maybe for it to go away entirely?
How do you patch KDE2 under FreeBSD?