

An academic study of anonymity and ephemerality in 4chan /b/ [pdf] - pgbovine
http://people.csail.mit.edu/msbernst/papers/4chan-icwsm2011.pdf

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DrJ
I enjoyed how the comments begins to degenerate as it goes further down the
comment tree.

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Shamiq
I'm having some difficulty in deciphering how this study defines success
regarding 4chan. From what I recall (google-fu failing me), 4chan is expensive
to run and Chris is having a hard time generating revenue off the beast.

Perhaps success here is defined as success was defined previously -- lots of
users, great potential for monetization, just need to figure out a successful
business strategy.

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throwaway32
I think one of the barriers to "monetization" is that the user base finds the
concept offensive.

A community does not need to be making its creators money hand over fist, or
indeed making money at all to be successful in terms of what the users
expect/want from it.

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redthrowaway
You've touched upon a very important point. There is huge antipathy on the
part of /b/tards towards sites like icanhascheezburger, knowyourmeme, and
others that profit off of content created on 4chan and shared for free with
its users. /b/ is mostly shit, but there are nuggets of gold there and most
/b/tards browse in order to witness their creation. /b/tards generally lament
memes that go mainstream. Rickrolling became incredibly painful once the old
media picked up on it (long before, really, but the cat was out of the bag),
as did chocolate rain. Sites that capitalize on the content created by
/b/tards for other /b/tards draw a lot of ire, and are frequently the targets
of attacks.

In the same way, most /b/tards would leave if 4chan became anything resembling
a legitimate business. There are far too many alternatives out there, and
while moot is generally well-liked, not too many people feel a great sense of
loyalty towards him. /b/tards have left in droves over far milder insults than
trying to make money off them.

The other problem is the content on /b/. It's nearly impossible for moot to
find advertising partners, given that gore, beastiality, and child porn are
posted fairly regularly. Not many legitimate companies are will to risk being
associated with that, so /b/ has had the same banner ads for months on end. I
can't imagine they pay much.

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shii
Minor correction, there is very little cp posted on /b/ anymore. You'll find
that stuff more freely on other spinoff chans, but rarely on /b/ specifically
anymore. It's a lot more tame tbh.

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drew
The thing is, cp includes self shots of people under 18. There is TONS of that
on /b/, of both genders. It's awfully hard to tell 19 from 17 when you're
taking a topless picture of yourself in the mirror.

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shii
Meh, I don't really consider all the camwhores on /b/ and the new /soc/ to be
cp really. It's when they start to have really small or no tits and larger
head to body ratio sizes - 12ish and under - that you're in cp territory. This
is true cp, and what the real btards on places like 7chan indulge in. The
current race on /b/ is full of the last waves of summerfag and other general
newfag cancer. There was a time a lot of actual cp was posted on /b/, but that
times' long gone.

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drew
Unfortunately, this isn't just a question of interpretation. Legally, there's
no differentiation between those two categories. One is more ethically
problematic than the other for sure, but you're just as screwed having either
on your computer. You can see this most clearly in sexting cases against high
school students. You can still get on the sex offender registry for sending a
picture of yourself to your boyfriend or girlfriend and there's tons of stuff
like that on /b/.

