4chan may be dead, but its toxic legacy lives on

Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Red Pills & Blue Checks

Ctrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly podcast about the latest news in online speech, from Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation‘s Ben Whitelaw. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Pocket Casts, YouTube, or your podcast app of choice — or go straight to the RSS feed. In this week’s round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: 4chan is dead. It’s Toxic Legacy is everywher…

4chan has been offline for over a week, and it's probably not coming back

Access to 4chan was disrupted on April 14, and troves of internal data appeared online shortly after. Members of Soyjak, a rival forum, claimed responsibility, declaring victory...

4chan may be dead, but its toxic legacy lives on

My earliest memory of 4chan was sitting up late at night, typing its URL into my browser, and scrolling through a thread of LOLcat memes, which were brand-new at the time. Back then a photoshop of a cat saying "I can has cheezburger" or an image of an owl saying “ORLY?” was, without question, the funniest thing my 14-year-old brain had ever laid eyes on. So much so, I woke my dad up by laughing too hard and had to tell him that I was scrolling t…

The rise and fall of 4Chan

The last rites are being read for one of the internet's most controversial forums after it was hacked, reportedly by a rival internet faction.Some believe the development could "spell the end" of 4Chan, said Sky News, after more than 20 years of influence and notoriety. What is it? The concept of 4Chan is simple, said the broadcaster – it's an online forum where anonymous users share pictures and text. But what keeps many of its 27 million users…