[go_go_]

> Another person points out that even if you hate 4chan (or especially if you do), it'd be better left intact to contain the culture that foments there. Otherwise we might see /r/The_Donald style posts all over the internet.

I can't help but to think this is pure fear mongering.

[gravypod]

If hacker news went down would you not use other discussion sites? Why would this not hold true for others who post things you don't like?

[M_Grey]

I somehow would guess that few people only use HN, in the same way that few only use 4chan.

[gnarbarian]

They have distinct uses and cultures. I use both. Destroying an outlet for a culture leads to migrants and discord at the new host.

This was demonstrated repeatedly when moot would attempt to delete a problem board like /b/ or /pol/ (diffusing that culture to other boards) or when digg would make a significant change causing an influx of migrants to Reddit.

I doubt they would come here though. If 4chan were to disappear entirely, most users would end up going to 8chan. Voting sites are not compatible with the provocative nature of image board cultures.

[M_Grey]

Exactly, and neither is strict moderation or a userbase that has no interest in that kind of thing, and no strong inclination to respond in kind. Still, the idea that somehow 4chan acts to contain the problem is unlikely. If you lance a cyst, you make a mess for a while, but that doesn't mean you've done much more than expose what was already killing you.

[gnarbarian]

I think it's healthy to have outlets like 4chan where a range of ideas can be thrown against the wall both ironically and seriously.

>If you lance a cyst, you make a mess for a while, but that doesn't mean you've done much more than expose what was already killing you

Except those users don't just go away. there are infinite places to go, none of which are as big as 4chan. So they find pockets of like-minded users and become even more extreme.

This is what happened after the ban wave of Nov 2014. Many different individuals left /pol/ in disgust en-mass to form splinter boards that cater to their particular ideology on places like 8chan. Spurned users also went to other boards and caused even more problems.

Now instead of a giant shitstorm of unbridled banter from all corners of the political spectrum /pol/ is an alt-right echo chamber like a conservative version of reddit.com/r/politics. Meanwhile there are 10 other echo chambers on 8chan for communists, democrats, libertarians and everything else.

The result has been balkanized echo chambers, worsened extremism and less diversity of ideas, discussion and ideology.

That's a bad thing IMO.

[M_Grey]

I don't think all of that is the result of the "ban wave", it's been a growing trend for years that people prefer echo chambers. That said, if you go to Reddit or Imgur and other sites, you can see the people from Stormfront, /pol/ and the rest are by no means sitting in those chambers without going "abroad".

The issue above all seems to be that not that many years ago, most people who got online did so with a computer, and even though that is trivially easy to anyone here any extra step from "I want online" to "I am online" cuts down the chaff. Now people overwhelmingly stab a button on their phone and bang... the world can hear you.

We're truly approaching a horizon past which everyone is online, and "everyone" includes a lot of marginal characters. The holocaust deniers who used to slip flyers into library books now huddle in their hug boxes, occasionally venturing forth to make some ridiculous claim and flip out at the "sheeple" who don't instantly see their brilliance. Tumblr is... proof that the Right has no monopoly on crazy.

I don't think shutting it down has any benefit, but I don't think that keeping it open does either. It just is.

[go_go_]

I would use other news sites, but that doesn't mean they would have the same culture. The culture of a site is allowed to exist by the site owners and if no site owner wanted 4chan's culture than they would just weed them out as they attempted to migrate.

We could get rid of 4chan's culture by extinguishing the voice of it, and as long as no one else allows that voice on their site then it ceases to exist.

[gnarbarian]

There are a bunch of boards people would migrate to. But the culture would become more fractured and as a result more extreme at each new location. Similar to what happened after the banwave in November 2014.