(4chan was originally intended for discussion of the same topics, and its culture remains heavily influenced by the mediums.) On Monday, Poole – posting under his moniker “moot” – announced that 4chan had been acquired by Hiroyuki Nishimura, the founder of 2channel.
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It should be no surprise that “imageboard” websites like 4chan, 8chan, and 2channel-which all host anonymous, provocative content from users around the world, often without charging any fees-have their share of fuzzy-sounding, behind-closed-door stories.
This seems to be a mixed move. Nishimura was the founder of 2channel, a Japanese textboard webpage founded back in 1999.
It’ll be interesting to see how 4chan will be affected by this, and if he brings any major changes to the incredibly popular image board.
You would be forgiven for thinking that the sale of 4chan would be taken as a huge insult by the site’s fiercely loyal users.
Poole said he met and befriended Hiroyuki in 2011. He said that he and Nishimura were “fast friends” who had bonded “over our shared passion for creating and managing online communities”. “There is nobody more qualified than Hiroyuki to lead 4chan, and I can’t think of a person better suited for the task”, Poole wrote. “He’s the great-grandfather of all of this”. Back in January 2015, Poole announced his retirement, and that he was passing the site on to a team of volunteers.
Poole told Mashable that he had sought to make a clean break from 4chan once he had established a way for the site to continue running. He said in a statement: “I’ve long admired 4chan’s place on the web as a producer of anonymous and Internet culture, and look forward to continuing to grow and develop the site and support the community”.
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Poole declined to discuss the terms of the deal, but with similar sites like Reddit and Imgur receiving tens of millions of dollars in venture capital funding, the price tag for 4chan could be large. He trained people to take over and operate the site before he departed.
