The challenges of studying 4chan and the Alt-Right: ‘Come on in the water’s fine’

Abstract

In 2019, the authors led a workshop at King’s College London examining how to study 4chan and assess their association with the Alt-Right. Unbeknownst to the authors, a participant was a 4chan user and started a mid-workshop thread on its notorious /pol/ (politically incorrect) board. It gained significant attention. Reviewing it later, the authors realised that this parallel thread illustrates perfectly the challenges researching 4chan – and similar – communities. We conducted discourse analysis on this unique dataset, providing an alternative perspective to predominant anthropological and informatic approaches. Our analysis enhances understanding of ‘free-extremist’ communities such as 4chan in several ways. It assesses how the /pol/ community responds to observation and provides new insights into roles influencers might have in radicalising others. It illustrates the value of discourse analysis in evaluating users’ associations with the Alt-Right. Finally, it proposes ways researchers can overcome the challenges faced when analysing such communities.

Influence Without Metrics: Analyzing the Impact of Far-Right Users in an Online Discussion Forum

“…While those not fitting into this ideal are not censored by the Flashback forum itself, they become heavily targeted by the community. This echoes previous research which shows how those who do not conform or adhere to the more or less informal rules in many online forums are reprimanded by the community (Bernstein et al, 2011; Colley & Moore, 2020; Gaudette et al, 2020; Nissenbaum & Shifman, 2017). More than that, the analysis demonstrates how hateful comments—not only toward ideas or perspectives but also toward specific users—are being passively endorsed by the forum, as moderators allow them to persist.…”

“…Influential users can inform about community culture more broadly and about processes of far-right mainstreaming and radicalization (see also Colley & Moore, 2020).…”

“…Influential users can inform about community culture more broadly and about processes of far-right mainstreaming and radicalization (see also Colley & Moore, 2020). While it has been known that Flashback hosts more or less extremist users and content, this article shows that these sentiments are not fringe or obscure, but instead seemingly widely supported and influential in the forum.…”

Online hate network spreads malicious COVID-19 content outside the control of individual social media platforms

“…To gain a better understanding of how malicious content spreads, we begin by creating a map of the network of online hate communities across six social media platforms. We include actively moderated mainstream platforms—Facebook, VKontakte, and Instagram—that have and enforce (to varying degrees) policies against hate speech, as well as the less-moderated platforms Gab 26 , Telegram 27 , and 4Chan 28 . We focus on the distinction between actively moderated and less-moderated platforms while acknowledging that they also vary in other important ways that are outside the scope of this paper: for example, platforms also vary in terms of whether or not posted content is removed after a certain length of time and whether or not posts are identified as linked to specific user accounts.…”

“…We focus on the distinction between actively moderated and less-moderated platforms while acknowledging that they also vary in other important ways that are outside the scope of this paper: for example, platforms also vary in terms of whether or not posted content is removed after a certain length of time and whether or not posts are identified as linked to specific user accounts. Our data include the most popular moderated social media platforms in the Americas and Europe (i.e., Facebook, VKontakte, Instagram), as well as less-moderated networks popular with hate groups (i.e., 4Chan, Gab 26 – 28 ). These platforms allows users to create and join groups, (e.g., Facebook fan page, VKontakte group, Telegram channel 4Chan boards) that are interest-based communities—in contrast to platforms such as Twitter or Parler that have no in-built collective accounts and are instead designed for broadcasting short messages 29 – 31 .…”