4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hosting shooting video

Re:4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hostin... by tombert on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @01:54PM (#19444839)

It makes me sad how 4chan has largely been reduced to a place where racists and bigots and sexists hang out. When I was a teenager, it felt like the racists in /b/ were doing it ironically (maybe I was wrong?), but now it seems like a place to spout off white-nationalist nonsense, and whenever its called out the people fall back on "it's just a joke bro!"

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Re:4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hostin... by happytoexplain on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @01:57PM (#19444883)

You're right, it used to be very non-political, irreverent, and highly offensive, as in offensive humor. Now there's a whole lot of very sincere religious/political/racial hatred.

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Re:4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hostin... by ooua on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @02:58PM (#19445581)

I also visited 4chan regularly in my teenage years, and this is the thing that jumps out at me. In the past, 4chan was a place where nothing was sacred and people who sincerely believed in anything were ruthlessly mocked. There were always the white nationalist types, but there were enough people making fun of them that it balanced out.

That former group has disappeared, and 4chan has become the biggest echo chamber on the Internet. There are stretches of hours and thousands of posts where there isn't a single dissenting political opinion.

The irreverence of 4chan was always the appeal. It has morphed into a lockstep belief system in a hero figure. What's the point of a website with anonymous posts and no rules if everyone is carefully agreeing with each other?

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Re:4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hostin... by elagost on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @09:38PM (#19448612)

On the Internet, even if you're "ironically" being something, it doesn't matter - in text, where it's difficult to interpret intent, if you're being something ironically, you're still being that thing. And for those that find it hard to interpret the irony, all they see is you being that thing.

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Re:4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hostin... by tombert on Thursday March 21, 2019 @10:11AM (#19452519)

Yeah, I agree that Poe's law is a thing. I'm not going to argue that 14-year-old me had terribly good judgement, and while I didn't really post any racist nonsense on 4chan, I did laugh at it, and I look back at that and cringe.

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Re:4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hostin... by Oribi on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @02:00PM (#19444920)

How can you be ironically racist, and why is that better than racism?

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Re:4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hostin... by tombert on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @02:07PM (#19445008)

In hindsight you are right, but I'll give you the mentality that 14-year-old-me had:

Basically, the idea of being racist is so absurd, that by being ironically racist I'm poking fun at the racists, not the races.

It's not a completely ridiculous notion (though it's abused heavily); satire is a common tactic for comedy. Clearly people go too far, and I don't think it's a good excuse to say "it's just satire".

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Re:4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hostin... by menacingly on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @02:07PM (#19445010)

The same way you can be ironically anything. It's not immune to modifiers just because it's offensive.

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Re:4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hostin... by tombert on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @03:26PM (#19445877)

I mean, I do think it's way too easy for someone to say something horrible, and then get off with no consequences because they claim it's just a joke (or locker room talk... cough).

I'm not exactly sure where we draw the line socially. I don't really have a problem with something like The Colbert Report, but I also really hate the "shitlord" movement that seems to be happening.

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Re:4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hostin... by dragonsngoblins on Wednesday March 20, 2019 @08:56PM (#19448444)

Large parts of 4chan are still pretty separate from that. Each board may as well be its own site after all

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Re:4chan, 8chan blocked by Australian and NZ ISPs for hostin... by tombert on Thursday March 21, 2019 @11:57AM (#19453855)

When I say 4chan, I mean /b/, which I think is pretty typical.

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