4chan Message Board Sold

The influential and controversial message board 4chan has been sold to Japanese web entrepreneur-turned-magazine editor Hiroyuko Nishimura for an undisclosed sum, it was announced yesterday.

Revelling in its reputation as the filthy, sweaty engine-room of the internet, 4chan was the originator and hub of a crazy amount of internet subculture including “LOLcats” and the practice of “Rickrolling”, in which an unsuspecting user is tricked into clicking on a link which takes them to the YouTube video of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up – a practice which re-booted Astley’s career.

It was also the place where Anonymous, the online hackers collective began and was also at the center of the nude celebrity leak, dubbed as “The fappening” last year. The website currently gets 22 million new visits every month and a million posts per day.

In January 4chan’s founder, Chris Poole – who goes by the username Moot –announced he was stepping down as administrator of the site, and in a news post on Monday he announced the sale of the site to Nishimura. He said that he and Nishimura were “fast friends” who had bonded “over our shared passion for creating and managing online communities”.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the site, I guess we’ll find out!

Thanks to Forbes for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of BusinessInsider