Chapotraphouse

Not surprising. Any platform with a significant number of users ultimately becomes a potential vector to steer public discourse at large scale. And I do think it's clear that Epstein was more than just a broker for a child abuse island; he was a middleman through which rich and influential people could connect and coordinate.

And it really shouldn't be underestimated just how influential 4chan was. In the latter half of the 2000s, it slowly but surely became the dominant force in creating internet meme culture, taking that crown from Something Awful, and largely influencing how people talked in those days. There was a reason the "f slur" was so common, and that was long before /pol/ even came into existence.

By 2010/2011, Ragefaces were the main "generic" meme format that people used on sites like 9gag, and they originated from 4chan. These would then be switched out for the Wojak/Pepe format that would become mainstream around 2013/2014, Pepe itself being largely perpetuated by /pol/. The frog has largely fallen out of favor for being associated with nazis, but the Wojak format persists, even within leftist communities, over 12 years later. A ton of internet expressions and mannerism originate from 4chan, so it's not surprising that it would become a target for rich people to influence public discourse.

This is the forest that people missed for the trees when Musk took over Twitter. For all the chants of how Musk was wasting a lot of money, how investors would leave, how the site might become unstable because of important people being fired, and how it would all turn into a disaster and collapse -- people seemed to barely consider the potential long-term gain for Musk in terms of narrative control by taking over such a huge social media site. Unsurprisingly, Musk then decided to get directly involved with the Trump administration, taking direct advantage of the media platform he now controlled. And the site persists, now considered a lawless trash dump with selective and sparse moderation, where far-right ideology can thrive, very much like 4chan.

And in the coming weeks and months, we will see such a takeover unfold with TikTok as well. There can be no major platform of public discourse online that rich and influential people will not attempt to take control of. It simply cannot be allowed to exist.