Comment by sunshine-o

1 day ago

I assumed 4chan didn't exist anymore and it was renamed/replaced by another board... Great advertisement.

The UK acts like a madman on fire trying to attack everybody.

34 comments

sunshine-o

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bentlegen  1 day ago

It stopped being relevant because its content became acceptable on major social networks, beginning in late 2022.

  • ux266478  1 day ago

    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  1 day ago

      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.

      7 replies →

    • okasaki  1 day ago

      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.

      1 reply →

Bender  1 day ago

In a way it does not exist any more. Most of the threads are started by 4chan-GPT yes this is a thing and most replies to threads are 4chan-GPT. They uses 4chan passes to allow proxies and not have to deal with a craptcha. Anyone could start their own chan, implement GPT bots and have the same level of popularity. I would wager a dozen HN'ers could implement this in a day. I think the goal on 4chan is controlling the narrative. My question would be, would HN'ers also use bots to control the narratives on their chans or create the same daily and weekly threads?

  • 1gn15  1 day ago

    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  1 day ago

      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?

      1 reply →

  • gs17  1 day ago

    > yes this is a thing and most replies to threads are 4chan-GPT

    Do you have proof of this?

    • Bender  1 day ago

      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.

      7 replies →