4chan was a website that was launched back in 2003, which would also launch the famed hacker group Anonymous, as well as give a rebirth to fascism.
Anonymous was founded in 2003 at the same time as 4chan went up. This was because people posting on 4chan could keep their identities hidden, with the author of the post being labeled as “Anonymous.” Anonymous started out as a group of pranksters, who use 4chan to organize internet pranks. Over time these pranks began to target political people, who were deemed unpopular, and over time Anonymous morphed into a group of political hacktivists. By 2011 they were able to organize their own grassroots protest during the “Occupy Wallstreet Protest.”
The elites were actually quite surprised, since they realized how powerful a tool this new idea of hacktivism could be. The elites were soon to use this new type of political tool, to push their left-wing agenda. After 2012 racism and homophobia, became common talking points in the media. This was in an effort to get people who were right winged targeted by hacktivist groups. The hacktivist group had many different, with many different viewpoints.
Even though Anonymous claimed to not have a leader, there were definitely people trying to take over and control the movement. This led to a political split in the movement. Now the 4chan community, especially /pol/ are getting into right winged politics. /pol/ was an image board that was made for people to share politically incorrect thoughts, but the /pol/ community grew, and soon the messages that were being pushed as incorrect, were now being adopted by a wider group of people. This led to Trump winning the 2016 election, a growth in antisemitism, traditionalist values being adopted by the masses, and the rise fascism.
In April of 2025 4chan was hacked, and information on its users was shared. The hackers pointed out that 4chan had been run by people with .gov extensions. Most of these people came from Israel, most likely making 4chan a failed 8200 operation. After the information on the Feds was made public, 4chan went down for 2 weeks.
This platform built this community, but destroying the platform didn’t destroy the community.
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