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Comment by eindiran | Hacker News Reader

This is a deep misunderstanding of 4chan, enough so that I find it difficult to believe you've even seen any board on the site you are discussing. The abuse is directed at everyone; no matter what opinion you share, no matter who you are, you will be verbally abused in a variety of ways. Totally innocuous opinions that you would be lauded for or totally ignored for on another site are just cause for being berated and harassed on 4chan, though the extent of it is largely governed by the culture of the particular board.

I think this is what OP meant by "egalitarian" (though I certainly wouldn't have chosen that word) -- equal opportunity abuse. This shared constant toxicity plus no karma/upvotes and no attachment to an online persona through anonymity mean that the playing ground is perhaps uniquely level.

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> The abuse is directed at everyone; no matter what opinion you share, no matter who you are, you will be verbally abused in a variety of ways.

Yeah, this is what people misunderstand about 4chan. Obviously my race gets a lot of flak, but I've even seen racial slurs about white Europeans I've never heard anywhere else.

I'm not saying it's morally right, but it feels more of a hazing tactic than legitimate hatred. Once you pass that filter you have access to some interesting information.

4chan has the most egalitarian slur ecosystem I've ever seen, it's incredible.

But it is absolutely not the case that the abuse is the same magnitude at everyone.

And? Imagine, for example, a comedian who pokes fun at all groups exactly equally. There are infinite types of people, he wouldn’t be able to say a word. Different things are different and that’s not inherently wrong.

They're not misunderstanding it they just don't accept your model of its value.

No matter what your ethnicity someone on 4chan will make a joke about genociding you. The difference is that some people in the world actually are doing genocides. And someone from one of those groups, knowing that, is going to experience those jokes differently.

4chan, (and to a serious degree, HN) places the duty and the transgression on the person who has the bad experience with the genocide joke. But a completely valid model is actually that no, the genocide joke is the transgression and the one making it the transgressor.

4chan is not separate from the world it is part of it. And by fostering this environment you're providing cover for atrocities. Because not everyone is there just to have a fun time saying slurs! Some of them really do want us to die, and 4chan isn't just a diversion it is an actual site of conversion and radicalization towards their goals.

> And by fostering this environment you're providing cover for atrocities.

To be clear, I am not "fostering [an] environment" or defending 4chan here at all, I am just pointing out that this is a misunderstanding of what the culture of 4chan is.

Like the person I was replying to, I somehow doubt you have spent any time there. Where on the site are you even talking about? /g/? /lgbt/? /k/? /mu/? /pol/? /bant/? /sci/? /b/? Even though they share the cultural features I was talking about, they are quite distinct otherwise. Many people read threads on a topical board like /mu/ or /g/ and haven't spent any time on the more offensive or stomach-churning parts of the site like /pol/ or /b/.

> Because not everyone is there just to have a fun time saying slurs

I resent this implication that merely because I suggest people understand the things they are talking about that I am on 4chan using slurs. This style of argumentation would be right at home on the worst boards of 4chan...

> it is an actual site of conversion and radicalization towards their goals

4chan is not a person, it doesn't have "goals" or opinions any more than heterogenous online communities like eg HN or Reddit do. I would agree that 4chan as a community does house more polarized opinions than most online communities, though that seems to be largely a function of not having upvotes and allowing anonymous posting.

To your overall point, that this is a value difference between myself and the GP, I fully disagree. I am making a factual (and not value-centric) claim that toxicity towards anyone posting on the site is an integral part of the culture there.

I stopped using 4chan 15 years ago when I realized that a huge portion of the people on there are not merely roleplaying nazis, but honestly hold the views they obscure behind the atmosphere of joking.

Up to date knowledge of their internal jargon and shibboleths doesn't discredit my view of the site, it's still right there and it doesn't take long to confirm that my worst opinions of it from 2008 are still valid now.

I never claimed that the site itself has opinions or goals. But its members do! and they emerge in the patterns of interaction and rhetoric eg its culture.

> I stopped using 4chan 15 years ago when I realized that a huge portion of the people on there are not merely roleplaying nazis, but honestly hold the views they obscure behind the atmosphere of joking.

How is that not an integral component of equal access?

"Wolves and sheep are equally welcome in this establishment."

XD yes.

I realize you’re probably trying to disagree with me, but, yes.

The sheep are not going to visit in this scenario because a free-for-all is comfortable for the wolves and not for the sheep. I think this is pretty straightforward with a moment of thought.

Here’s another thought: avowed Nazis are not, strictly speaking, stopped from participating in any pseudonymous forum, if they can keep their views on that subject to themselves. Why is this model less “open” or “egalitarian” than one where they’re allowed to barge into conversations and start spewing that stuff?

> The sheep are not going to visit in this scenario because a free-for-all is comfortable for the wolves and not for the sheep. I think this is pretty straightforward with a moment of thought.

Yes, of course. It did seem the clear intent behind your words. Arm the sheep and it may be a different matter, no? Or, as you say, the sheep could simply not show up if they don't like their odds. I'm really not making a value judgement on the situation, just saying that everyone is handed equal tools here.

> Here’s another thought: avowed Nazis are not, strictly speaking, stopped from participating in any pseudonymous forum, if they can keep their views on that subject to themselves. Why is this model less “open” or “egalitarian” than one where they’re allowed to barge into conversations and start spewing that stuff?

Well, the easy answer is that it's less open because it is moderated. Perhaps each is open in different, conflicting ways? I'm not really prepared to perform an analysis on the ethics of each, and please don't take my response as necessarily expressing a preference for the former. Insofar as I spend time on any social platform, it is mostly HN, and mostly because I find the conversation here generally more civil than elsewhere. So in practice, I do seem to express a preference for the latter.

Sea lion shit right here man. We can't stop you from chilling with the nazis if that's what you're gonna be into but we aren't going to believe that it's all in good fun.

> Sea lion shit right here man.

Sorry, I don't know what this means.

> We can't stop you from chilling with the nazis if that's what you're gonna be into

Thanks, I'll pass.

Now that I'm home and had some time to look properly, I guess this[0] is what you mean?

That's.. not very nice =(. I also don't see how it applies here, even if you do assume bad faith --- who exactly am I pestering? I asked you one question, then I've been having a back-and-forth with emodendroket --- a simple one-for-one. I'll also have you note that they chose to engage me. I'm certainly not following people even cross-thread, let alone cross-platform, pestering them until I get a response and demanding they justify their personal preferences.

I'm trying to have a legitimate conversation; it was my belief that intellectual discussion was encouraged here. If you don't want to discuss, don't respond, it's pretty much that simple. I'm not going to chase you down. However, if you are going to engage, I would appreciate if you don't accuse me of trolling on the basis of a disagreement and some weak notion of bad faith.

[0] https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/sealioning/

I'm not super familiar with internet history, but wasn't the 4chan/reddit crowd basically the same around 2008?

As in mostly anti Bush-establishment, lefty, pro-freedom, 'rational' anti-religion atheists.

I'd say the most of my (admittedly fuzzy) memories of that era of 4chan political activism were Aaron Swartz/Anonymous.

Probably largely the same people but cultures can change even if none of the membership does.

Anyway two points:

- The vicious racism was already enough of a consistent thing in the 2000s that I clocked it as essentially a movement at that point. They always claimed to be joking but even then it was clear that many of them were not. Regardless of what other political affiliations were commonly held there at that time. But I think you got it pretty close, they weren't that politically coherent back then, and certainly not leftist so much as just anti-bush/anti-republican.

- Gamergate was a permanent rearrangement, finally giving a coherent "them" to orient a reactionary antipolitical movement against. I think the sharp ramp up in aggressiveness and frankly violent imagery filtered a lot of people out, while simultaneously inviting people in, creating a new overlap with pre-existing and nascent reactionary groups like (self-identified I don't mean this as an insult per se) reddit incels.

So having kept an eye on it for a while now, I think it has meaningfully changed since 2008, even if a lot of the members are the same and many of the cultural signifiers are intact. Just for one it is much more coherent as an allegiance or identity, as you can see by the dozens of people coming out to passionately defend it in these comments.

I find it absolutely ridiculous that you keep telling people that they haven't visited 4chan and are wrong. This is hackernews. Most of us are in our 30s and were perpetually online during the rise of 4chan and are not ignorant whatsoever to what chan boards are like. The last time I went there it was full of CP and I lose all respect for people who use that site no matter how you try to spin it.

I'm in my 30s and I don't know which boards you frequented to see so much CP because that was not my experience at all. Most of the criticism around the alleged tons of CP seemed to come from people who had an ideological ax to grind against the site in general.

Sounds like a "you problem."

Yeah, you're right. We all have an axe to grind against 4chan. We're all making up that we saw CP on it.

I'm a former Goon. I've been all over the trashy parts of the internet. It doesn't benefit me whatsoever to lie about seeing CP on 4chan. I even remember exactly what the picture I saw the last time I went to it looked like. It is seared into my memory. That was my last visit to that trash site.

My sympathies. I never spent any time on 4chan. But between doing some desktop publishing and helping friends with abuse on the first web-based chat, I saw a bunch of things I could not unsee. It took me maybe 15 years for that stuff to not come back as what they call "involuntary autobiographical memories". It has now faded to the point that I can't bring the full images back at all, just hazy, untraumatizing vague versions. I hope you get there soon!

I know a good amount of people in their 30s who were perpetually online, from that time onward, and can can think of maybe two who have been to 4chan.

> The last time I went there it was full of CP and I lose all respect for people who use that site no matter how you try to spin it.

It sounds like you don't actually use the site --- just like GP was saying.

You again. K. No, I don't use the site anymore. I've established that. If you're going to say that I've never used the site, I've also established that I have. More drivel from you. Thanks for replying absolute joke replies to multiple posts of mine. I love that your your username is your name and you post this trash defending CP.

Yes, me again!

> If you're going to say that I've never used the site, I've also established that I have.

So… you’ve no respect for your former self? You see how this works?

Nowhere did I defend cp. Those are your words about me, not my words about anything. And what about my username? Am I supposed to hide behind a throwaway for any sort of contentious take? Does that make me a man somehow?

Good day, sir!

> So… you’ve no respect for your former self? You see how this works?

You have the strangest arguments. I quit going to it once I saw CP. I don't even remember why I used to visit it occasionally, probably morbid curiosity, or maybe people on somethingawful linking posts on it. I definitely didn't frequent it and I'm sure I never posted on it.

I've seen comments that it's cleaned up a lot and has better moderation. That's good.

> you ... defending CP

Yikes. On 4chan you'd have just blindly implied that the poster fathered himself in a freak accident with his mother, who is a bovine. Here, on the nice polite internet, you merely implied that a real person, whose name is attached, is defending ch1ld s3xual abuse.

You're so upset about there being a forum you don't like that you've decided to use one of the most powerful accusations you can make about him - one that imho could justifiably get him killed if true - so casually. So much hatred.

Oh sorry bud, I guess I shouldn't be upset that there's a forum that I saw tons of child porn on. And nazis. And trans-hating homophobes. I'm so sorry, I'll try to be better.

The guy has replied to every single one of my posts after I said I quit going to 4chan because of CP defending 4chan. A little odd considering my circumstances for leaving it. That shouldn't even remotely be a debate on why I left.

> I'm so sorry, I'll try to be better.

Thanks.

> That shouldn't even remotely be a debate on why I left.

Sure, you're the definitive source for why you left.

> there's a forum that I saw tons of child porn on.

It wasn't a forum for that though (I hope), it was a forum where people trolled others by posting it. Do you know someone put CP in the bitcoin blockchain?

And yeah, I use a no-images no-JS browser for a lot of things and 4chan would be one. I expect to be blocking 99% gore, but that last 1% is many things I'm also happy not seeing.

> I guess I shouldn't be upset

Upset at who, though? Upset at the people who enjoy an uncensored forum and have accepted that it'll be full of crap, or at the people who feel the need to poison it simply because someone else was enjoying themselves?

> trans-hating homophobes

Anonymous forums are actually one of the first places trans people were free to discuss themselves. You might (will) be flamed and trolled for it, but also engaged with. Reddit seems more free to be trans, except if you look at the forums there's always someone being banned for non-hateful things, such as being the wrong type of trans, or detrans. (Truscum vs Tucutes vs old-school Transexuals ...)

Correct me if I'm wrong but, you and others are saying that posting racial slurs, CP and gore for shock value are an integral part of the culture?

I don't understand why it's important to be flamed at all by people who are anonymous? I might banter with friends, but there's a shared history of understanding there; in an anonymous message board there's none of that so I don't understand what it's trying to achieve?

> CP and gore for shock value

No, that stuff is gross and you block/avoid it. The integral part is that the forum uncensored - even if a large quantity of that uncensored content is unwanted.

And fwiw, 4chan is only one example of a (nearly) uncensored board, it's far from the best or nicest.

> I don't understand why it's important to be flamed at all

That's not the important part, but that you can have the conversation at all. The idiots running around screaming are like ghosts in Harry Potter, distractions if you let them be but almost invisible if you ignore them.

> racial slurs ... are an integral part of the culture?

Well sometimes yes, actually. Like the now banned subreddit, 2balkan4u, sometimes "hate subs" actually aren't. I'm familiar only via gaming friends, but it's basically people who've come together around "hating" each other for ethnic reasons. It doesn't look friendly but is, with people bonding over their shared history - often dark - and collectively watching the world go by from a cynical pov. It's like therapy and the hanging out with the only people who understand you, something many veterans feel even when meeting ex-"enemy" combatants. A sanitized version of this wouldn't work.

> The guy has replied to every single one of my posts after I said I quit going to 4chan because of CP defending 4chan.

Uh. I replied to two posts; everything else has been direct back-and-forth with you. Every one except this one anyway; this one is because you're directly discussing me. I don't know if that's "every single one of your posts" or not, but it certainly sounds less dramatic when you realize that it's.. two.

> after I said I quit going to 4chan defending 4chan

Go back and read a second time. I didn't actually defend 4chan, and I certainly didn't and am not defending csam. I didn't say anything objectionably about you leaving, either; what I did respond to was your assertion that you're familiar with 4chan. All I really said is, hey, sounds like maybe you don't actually hang out there (which is fine!) --- just like GP was saying in the first place. I also tried to point out that the internet at large is basically unmoderated, and 4chan itself exists within that space. You could just as easily make the argument that the internet itself is dangerous and to be avoided.

You don't have to agree with me. You don't have to like me --- even if I wish you wouldn't make snap judgements about me based off of a few terse exchanges. What I would hope for, however, is that you could remain civil, rather than open fire with personal attacks. Especially here on HN.

I'll leave that one up to you; we can discuss further or not, but I'm not going to engage in an open flame war here.

Everyone has been on 4chan. That's a weak way to try to discredit people whose opinions you disagree with.

You act like you're being an anthropologist, but you're just apologizing for a culture we all know and which does demonstrable harm in the world. It's not "polarized opinions", it's celebrating terrible things. You know that, we know that.

Everyone has been on slashdot too, right? I mean come on, it's slashdot.

...except realistically, even though I'm in the age and interest group, I've been there like, a single-digit number of times --- which totally qualifies me as an expert on it, right?

> And someone from one of those groups, knowing that, is going to experience those jokes differently.

This is the absolutely critical point that people are either too privileged to have ever thought of, or too disingenuous to admit.

Yeah, I'm a relatively wealthy (by global standards) white guy of European descent. You can joke about genociding me and I'll laugh because it's a ridiculous thought.

People who grew up genuinely at risk of genocide, or who had recent ancestors killed, don't see that same joke that same way. Worse, the people making those jokes about populations that are currently being exterminated are just doing the old "hey I'm a nazi, ha ha just kidding, can't you take a joke" thing. Which, great, free speech. But at some point if you're goose stepping in jest on a daily basis, that's just who you are.

Kurt Vonnegut said it: we are what we pretend to be.

There's a genocide against white people going on right now in Ukraine.

> This is the absolutely critical point that people are either too privileged to have ever thought of, or too disingenuous to admit.

...or fundamentally disagree with? Yes, you're describing something real. You're also setting a double standard. Is it possible to understand the premises but come to different conclusions?

> This is the absolutely critical point that people are either too privileged to have ever thought of, or too disingenuous to admit.

You are also too privileged to think anyone might not be offended by those words, or even allow them the chance to speak for themselves. The banning of r/2balkan4u was a great exercise in the White Man's Burden of freeing the poor helpless "minorities" from Balkan inside jokes

> white guy of European descent. You can joke about genociding me and I'll laugh because it's a ridiculous thought.

Do you by any chance have any Italian ancestors? It took a large amount of lynchings, a significant public uproar and finally a threat of war from Europe for the US to finally elevate Italians to "white" . Americans ingrained need to be racist against everyone they could almost causing WWI (with all the interwoven alliances) is an interesting thought.

> Americans ingrained need to be racist against everyone

Have you ever been anywhere in the world which you found less racist than the USA? (Bonus points if it actually has a substantial population and racial/ethnic mix to test that, and it's not just theoretical.)

A lot of places have hidden hatred of groups which acts like racial hate, but doesn't appear that way to people from the USA where the divide (black/white) was so stark and visible. Turks/Armenians, Shia/Sunni, etc.

The USA isn't perfect, but I can't think of anywhere else that I could so unreservedly recommend to anyone around the world. Not Canada, not Germany, maybe the UK, sorta Singapore if you're not certain races, etc, etc.

> But a completely valid model is actually that no, the genocide joke is the transgression and the one making it the transgressor.

The transgression is on those who carry out the genocide. There is no model where reminding someone of the existence of something is a transgression.

Sure there's a model for that, that's why people give trigger warnings before going into discussions about take for example.

You might not agree with it but there's definitely a model that many people subscribe to.

People suffering the trauma of conflict can be hurt by harsh words. It's a choice to consider them or not when you speak.

Words can hurt, but that does not mean the formulation of the words is the transgression. Words only hurt when they speak to truth and what underlies a truth that hurts is where you find the transgression. It is your choice whether or not you choose to help work towards ending the transgression. Going about your day pretending something doesn't exist doesn't accomplish anything.

If you need to subscribe to that model to hide from yourself from the fact that you don't actually care, it is your life to live, but it is not a model that works beyond one's self. The disingenuity is out there for everyone else.

I disagree. Words can certainly be transgressive given certain company or context. Being sensitive to the feelings of others doesn't have to be mutually exclusive to fighting against hatred and injustice.

The fact that trigger warnings exist and are in use in many places is evidence of the existence of this model.

There is only so much time in the day. Every minute spent in idle chit-chat where one might blurt out the wrong thing is time not spent dealing with the actual problem. Indeed, it is a mutually exclusive situation. It is not possible to do both at the same time.

There is no denying the existence of the model, but it is used to try and hide from oneself that one doesn't actually care and would rather take the fun road of talking about it instead. Which is fine. It is your life to live and if that is what it takes to get through the day, so be it. It is not the altruistic behaviour you are trying to make it out to be, however.

I'm not arguing for or against any model of behaviour. Like I said above these are choices that people are free to weigh up and do as they see best.

I'm simply responding to "There is no model where reminding someone of the existence of something is a transgression" but we seem to have reached an agreement that there is.

We have always acknowledged that people will set up walls to hide from themselves. It is not clear how you think that equates to a transgression. It is likely a fundamental aspect of the human experience.

It can be seen as a transgression because you're knowingly choosing words that will cause someone distress.

In my experience people are normally careful about what kind of jokes they make around someone who has suffered a traumatic experience, an "there's a time and a place" kind of thing.

I believe many people would find it transgressive to make jokes about public transport around someone whose child had recently been killed by a bus.

You can see this even in popular culture. I'd give the famous "Don't mention the war" episode of Fawlty Towers as an example.

I think it's part of the human experience to exhibit sensitivity towards others and to reflect that in your language.

> It can be seen as a transgression because you're knowingly choosing words that will cause someone distress.

Who? On internet forums, there is only you. Any words you write are done so to stroke your own thought processes. There is no expectation of anyone else being on the line. In fact, most comments you write will never be read by anyone. And even when something does reply, there is no belief that it must be human. It could just as easily be a GPT model, and that's fine. It wouldn't change the experience.

Again, forum usage is solitary activity. If there are other humans involved behind the scenes to make the software work, that is merely an implementation detail that is not of concern to the user. Any care for the words you choose is only for your own benefit, and as it pertains to the discussion, most likely because you don't want to accept some truth about yourself.

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