In the vast realm of the internet, where pop culture collides with hacktivism, crime, and terrorism, there exists a notorious online community that thrives on offensive content and serves as a breeding ground for criminal activities. This is the enigmatic story of 4Chan and its intriguing evolution into a hotbed for hackers.
Originally created as a response to Japan’s 2chan, 4Chan, which is also known as the “website with no rules”, started as a place for anime enthusiasts to discuss manga, comics, and their favorite TV shows. However, as time passed, the website users began witnessing extremities and lawlessness on the platform, which caught the attention of the hacker community.
Since its inception in 2003, the popular image board website has been involved in several controversies. However, things took a darker turn as users began witnessing anonymous confessions to murders, hacking sensitive data, and more on the website. Hacking remained a major concern because sensitive data was being leaked on the site, costing millions of dollars in damage, and reputation as well as gravely impacting the lives of people.
Christopher Poole or also known by his online alias Moot, started 4Chan after being inspired by 2Chan, a Japanese imageboard that later inspired 4Chan — almost mimicking the original image board but catering to English-speaking communities. One of the major successful traits of 4Chan was its ability to post anonymously and the inner engineer of the website allowing posts to disappear under a thread —- leaving no chance of evidence against criminals confessing their crimes online. This route largely differs from the standard social media platforms where users are required to sign up with a name and email. This unique feature was something that no other social media website was able to offer to its users — complete anonymity! The website’s founder was also baffled at the sheer number of visitors they were getting every month. In a TED Talks show titled “The case for anonymity online,” Poole explained how 4Chan became one of the most visited websites in a couple of years. With over 7 million monthly visitors, 700,000 posts per day, and 48 individual boards to use, the website was thriving in the early days of the internet and destroying every other social media platform in terms of daily traffic.
However, behind these jokes, memes, and funny cat videos, many popular threat actors and hacktivist groups began formulating on the platform. Among those hacker groups, Anonymous, which was also a part of the 4Chan community back in the day, began experimenting with the 4Chan community with their channel “Marble Cake.” The group, which was yet to establish a name in the hacking community, gained international support from people demanding free speech with its campaign, “The Project Chanology.”
During the TED Talk, Poole also spoke about the Tom Cruise controversy that triggered an extreme reaction on the platform, which eventually led to protests where several were hurt. On January 14, 2008, a video by the Church of Scientology featuring an exclusive interview with Tom Cruise, was leaked on YouTube. The video featured the Hollywood actor discussing his devotion to the “Church of Scientology” drew flak online as many termed Cruise’s behavior “strange”. In response to the ongoing trolls and memes, the Church of Scientology took down the video from YouTube with a copyright claim. This angered the internet community and soon protests broke out. “Scientology had this embarrassing video of Tom Cruise. It went online. They got it taken offline and managed to ‘piss off the internet’. So, over 7,000 people, in less than one month, organized in hundreds of cities around the globe and protested the Church of Scientology,” Poole explained during his TED Talk. The protest went on for a couple of months, and many people got hurt. Poole also explained in the Ted Talks show that some individuals continued to protest against the Church of Scientology after two years of the incident.
The /b/ random board gave users the freedom to post literally anything on the platform. It was unlike any other boards on that platform, which were dedicated to users sharing information about their favorite games, anime, memes and more. The /b/ random board was filled with posts threatening people for murders, asking users how to bury bodies, suicide-encouraging posts, and extremities that could get anyone arrested.
Moreover, it has been rumored that the world-renowned hacker group Anonymous also began their journey on the /b/ random board. Anonymous started by doing silly pranks, such as prank calling companies, hacking small sites for fun, and sharing their data with the 4Chan community, but soon, these minor pranks turned into something big, and this hacker group soon became one of the most feared groups of individuals to ever exists on the internet. On January 21, 2008, Anonymous shared its first official video titled “Message to Scientology,” claiming to “destroy” the Church of Scientology for brainwashing its members. A couple of months after their warning, Anonymous hacked the website of the Church of Scientology and leaked their internal documents on the website. The hacker collective paved the way for hacktivists to be thought as more than just prank-calling teens.
However, hacking activities by 4Chan users continued to take an extreme form and went beyond free speech, activism, and protests. In another incident, the 4Chan community hacked the third annual TIME 100 poll for World’s Most Influential Person. To achieve this feat, 4Chan members decided to make its founder Christopher Poole, the number 1 on the TIME 100 list, beating the likes of globally recognized figures such as Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Oprah Winfrey. The hackers on the imageboard forum created programs that were submitting millions of votes in favor of Poole. They even went as far as spamming multiple platforms with links dedicated to pushing the founder to the number one position. However, that was just the beginning. In 2012, the same board members restarted the campaign, and this time, they made Kim Jong Un, the monarch of North Korea, the person of the year. These incidents confirmed that /b/ random board members were not ordinary people but highly skilled individuals familiar with hacking and digital manipulations.
But it wasn’t just hacking and pranks that 4Chan was known for. They had a more sinister side as well. In October 2012, the 4Chan community pushed a prank post about Justin Bieber having cancer, and their prank encouraged young girls to shave their heads in support of the pop singer. They also posted a fraudulent response from Justin Bieber for the campaign. The hashtag soon went viral prompting young girls into shaving their heads. While Justin Bieber was nowhere associated with the campaign, in 2013, 4Chan’s/b/ random board pushed another campaign called “#cuttingforbieber.” This campaign was targeting young girls and boys, encouraging them to cut themselves to make Justin Bieber stop smoking after TMZ leaked an image of the young pop star holding a blunt. The /b/ random board continued running the fake campaign that was directly brainwashing young Justin Bieber fans to cut their wrists with razor blades, which prompted many to question the authenticity of the internet. The prank was initially started by a 4Chan user who posted this message on the /b/ random board, “Let’s start a cut yourself for Bieber campaign. Tweet a bunch of pics of people cutting themselves and claim we did it because Bieber was smoking weed. See if we can get some little girls to cut themselves.”
In conclusion, 4Chan’s evolution from a simple online community for anime enthusiasts to a hotbed for hackers is a fascinating and disturbing tale. The platform’s anonymity and lack of rules allowed for the rise of hacktivist groups like Anonymous, who used 4Chan as a platform to spread their message and carry out cyberattacks. However, 4Chan’s potential for harm was also evident in the various incidents of hacking, cyberbullying, and pranks that caused real-world harm and distress. While 4Chan may have started with innocent intentions, it has become a cautionary tale of the dangers that can arise when the internet’s dark underbelly is left unchecked.