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| ▲ | ux266478 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Major social networks aren't even remotely close to being in the same niche.
There are no algorithms, no friction with accounts, no obtrusive interfaces or feature bloat, no likes, no post ratings, content is completely ephemeral. This is a common and fundamental misunderstanding I see people make when trying to understand why 4chan exists. The people who post on 4chan aren't doing it because they can't help but post edgy content, they're doing it because its web 1.0 approach to social media completely erases a whole load of annoyances and anti-patterns that are endemic in the modern web. Just like Usenet, it will probably never die despite the antisocial controversies. Or at least in the case of 4chan, it will be replaced with another board-type system. As Twitch streamers are the contemporary version of AM radio, 4chan is the contemporary version of BBSes. You should be extremely skeptical of the idea that you could ever compete in the same space with a heavily commercialized product like a modern social network. Twitter is not a replacement, it never will be. | | |
| ▲ | dkiebd 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Most people in websites like HN have absolutely no idea what 4chan is, how it works, and what kind of things people post in there. It shows because every time you read a comment here about 4chan you are confused as to what website they may be talking about. | | |
| ▲ | OldfieldFund 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Twitter is really not far from 4chan in 2025. | | |
| ▲ | numpad0 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Always has been. A lot of prominent Twitter accounts in my primary language, especially the old ones, has telltales of having been on 2chan. net. There must be something to that format that installs a basic social media amplification skill in your brain that do not develop otherwise. There are places more toxic than 4chan but skill levels don't compare, and 4chan and 2chan also share nothing culture wise, so it must be in the architecture. | | |
| ▲ | ACCount37 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | My guess would be that to be on 2chan/4chan "back in the day", you need to be terminally online. And being terminally online is a soft prerequisite to being really good at posting interesting things online. Excellence isn't an act - it's a habit. | | |
| ▲ | numpad0 3 days ago | parent [-] | | There was also 2ch. net that was a lot bigger, but 2ch "alumni" aren't as good. It's not just cohort, it has/had better action-reward loop than other systems. |
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| ▲ | PicassoCTs 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Its the fleetingness as a filter. If you are not catchy and repeated by others- its gone. instantly. No coming back. |
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| ▲ | dmonitor 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's understating it. They're practically the same at this point, 4chan just has fewer bots. | | |
| ▲ | hellojesus 3 days ago | parent [-] | | 4chan doesn't manipulate the feed, so far as I know. Nor does it require a phone number to use. It blocks mainstream vpns, but that's about it. Behind the scenes, who knows, but it's not as obviously full of low effort bait as Twitter, and no account is necessary. |
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| ▲ | okasaki 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Actually 4chan does have accounts, otherwise you get extremely nasty captchas. Anyways, image boards are ephemeral because the devs were incompetent and cheap, it wasn't some genius design, or design at all. | | |
| ▲ | dmonitor 3 days ago | parent [-] | | the emergent behavior from ephemeral posting has become a feature by this point. and while it does technically have accounts, they don't at all work like a normal social media account. they aren't published, and using the "this is for sure me" tripcode feature is socially frowned upon. |
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| ▲ | catsma21 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | there's more boards than just /b/ | |
| ▲ | firesteelrain 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | What content in particular? | | |
| ▲ | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The stuff that Free Speech Absolutists like to say on twitter, judging by the date they included. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon... | | |
| ▲ | watwut 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Amd by free speech absolitists we usually mean nazi supporters. Who care great deal about spreading their ideas They just happen to care equally lot about punishing and shutting up whoever is not on their side. | | |
| ▲ | PicassoCTs 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Listen. The lies, the culture relativist lies, they are so tiresome. We now all have ghaza at home- and we see through it all now. You do not have the slightest idea of the world, you just have that approximation made out of your own feelings and you yank on all social levers to make it real. Im sorry the world made you unable to appreciate complexity and handle it especially when its hostile to western values.
But the grown ups have to clean up your mess now. Why not go and play in your corner, with the other problems, you could play "nazi and revolutionary" all day long. Thank you.. |
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| ▲ | dmonitor 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | racism |
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| ▲ | LAC-Tech 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | 4chan is to Twitter what Reddit is to Hacker News. |
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| ▲ | 1gn15 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I frequent the NSFW boards and that doesn't seem to be the case? And if it is the case... I guess it's so undetectable that it doesn't matter anyway. | | |
| ▲ | Bender 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I doubt GPT is posting NSFW content. I think /b/ is mostly teen boys on the cell phones at school. Prior to 2012 it was diverse porn but then it started to lean heavily into gay porn. I don't know what to make of that. Perhaps Pornhub does not have enough gay porn and they are filling the void? | | |
| ▲ | djrj477dhsnv 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I don't see that much gay porn on there. The most popular threads seem to be teens that may or may not be 18, trans girls, chubby girls, and girls that you know personally. Then there's the AI porn which is often furry or children. |
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| ▲ | gs17 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > yes this is a thing and most replies to threads are 4chan-GPT Do you have proof of this? | | |
| ▲ | Bender 3 days ago | parent [-] | | They bragged about it for a while but after the bragging stopped my proof is only anecdotal. When the United States Agency for International Development was defunded the bots went quiet and shortly thereafter the site was hacked using a vulnerability that had been well known since 2012. It was peaceful for a few weeks prior to the hack and for a couple weeks after the hack. Most of the fake racists disappeared from /pol/ and /g/ stopped shilling products. It was just real people and the site was just as active as the hundreds of other chans. Best I can tell 4chan is a test site to fine tune social manipulation GPT's. All the bots, fake racists and shillers are back now suggesting to me the manipulators started getting funded by other means. Before someone says it, there are a few real racists there too. The bots attract and egg them on. Most moved to 8chan. I think that is part of the experiment and tuning. Perhaps some day the veil will be lifted. | | |
| ▲ | bananalychee 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | If that's true you should be able to see that in the public traffic statistics. | | |
| ▲ | Bender 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I thought about that as well. This would be true if team-hiromoot is not cooperating with the bot owners, otherwise the bots could simply be excluded given all their traffic is authenticated with a 4chan pass. Other chans have manipulated their stats to change how active they appear so it's really hard for me to rely upon that. | | |
| ▲ | fiso64 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | At this point your hypothesis is unfalsifiable. I was on /g/ before and after the hack and didn't detect any big changes. It was as shitty as ever. | | |
| ▲ | Bender 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah the only way I could really prove anything would be to fully own and operate the site, a task I would never take on. It might be interesting and educational for a day but without government immunity it would get risky fast. | |
| ▲ | hellojesus 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | /g/ is really only good during aoc |
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| ▲ | Anon1096 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | There are non affiliated stat trackers like 4stats.io or any of the archive sites. It's pure nonsense/conspiracy theory to suggest everything is bot content now. |
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| ▲ | Lammy 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Best I can tell 4chan is a test site to fine tune social manipulation GPT's. Almost certainly. Relevant donor tie from the Tiburon Trestle Trail Project https://imgur.com/a/3JAW9ku (2017) |
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| ▲ | sunaookami 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | This was one guy that did it for a few days (weeks?). Not some "common occurence". Funny video btw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efPrtcLdcdM |
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