4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, the site hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from video games and television to literature, cooking, weapons, music, history, anime, fitness, politics, and sports, among others. Registration is not available and users typically post anonymously.[2] As of 2022[update], 4chan receives more than 22 million unique monthly visitors, of which approximately half are from the United States.[3][4]
4chan was created as an unofficial English-language counterpart to the Japanese imageboard Futaba Channel, also known as 2chan, and its first boards were originally used for posting images and discussion related to anime. The site has been described as a hub of Internet subculture, its community being influential in the formation and popularization of prominent Internet memes, such as lolcats, Rickrolling, rage comics, wojaks, Pepe the Frog, as well as hacktivist and political movements, such as Anonymous and the alt-right. 4chan has often been the subject of media attention as a source of controversies, including the coordination of pranks and harassment against websites and Internet users, and the posting of illegal and offensive content as a result of its lax censorship and moderation policies. In 2008, The Guardian summarized the 4chan community as "lunatic, juvenile (...) brilliant, ridiculous and alarming".[5]
The majority of posting on 4chan takes place on imageboards, on which users have the ability to share images and create threaded discussions.[6][7] As of August 2022[update], the site's homepage lists 75 imageboards and one Flash animation board. Most boards have their own set of rules and are dedicated to a specific topic, including anime and manga, video games, music, literature, fitness, politics, and sports, among others. Uniquely, the "Random" board—also known as /b/—enforces no particular rules.[8]
4chan is the Internet's most trafficked imageboard, according to the Los Angeles Times.[9] 4chan's Alexa rank was 853 on March 2022,[10] though it has been as high as 56.[11] It is provided to its users free of charge and consumes a large amount of bandwidth; as a result, its financing has often been problematic. Poole has acknowledged that donations alone could not keep the site online, and turned to advertising to help make ends meet.[12] However, the explicit content hosted on 4chan has deterred businesses who do not want to be associated with the site's content.[13] In January 2009, Poole signed a new deal with an advertising company; in February 2009, he was $20,000 in debt, and the site was continuing to lose money.[14] The 4chan servers were moved from Texas to California in August 2008, which upgraded the maximum bandwidth throughput of 4chan from 100Mbit/s to 1Gbit/s.[15]