Google has hired Chris Poole, the founder and former owner of the controversial Internet community 4chan. The hire was first announced by Poole himself, and later confirmed by Bradley Horowitz, who is heading Google’s social efforts.
“I can’t wait to contribute my own experience from a dozen years of building online communities, and to begin the next chapter of my career at such an incredible company,” Poole wrote in a blog post Monday.
Poole launched 4chan as an image sharing message board in 2003. For the first few years, he was only known under the pseudonym “moot,” until the Wall Street Journal revealed his identity in 2008. 4chan was initially meant to be a community for anime fans, but the site quickly evolved to encompass all kinds of geek culture, and became the birthplace for a number of popular memes.
The site has also been associated with the Internet activism of Anonymous, and was the launchpad for a number of hacks and distributed denial-of-service attacks. By allowing users to post anonymously without the need to first register for an account, 4chan has become to some a safe haven for free speech, while others have criticized the site’s users for bullying and mob behavior. It’s worth noting that 4chan repeatedly shut down message boards associated with racism and the so-called gamergate movement.
Google didn’t immediately respond to questions about Poole’s role at the company, but it’s likely that he will try to help the company with its struggling social strategy. Google launched Google+ as its answer to Facebook in late 2011, but has since scaled back ambitions to make Google+ a social layer for all of the company’s products and services. More recently, Google+ has focused on the creation of communities around topics of interest — something that Poole may be able to help with.
It is kind of disturbing how 4chan is harder on internet assholes than big sites like reddit and facebook.
Reddit, the site that brigaded on a person they falsely accused of being the Boston Bomber? Anyway, there’s a lot of overlap these days as the 4chan users get older they spend time between both sites.
I’m glad Chris Poole went legit. These days since he left 4chan is a cesspool. I hope he can help Google modernize and be more than another annoying tech company.
Maybe Moot can cuck some shit up?
Boffo.
Didn’t know they let verified cuckolds work at google, then again….
holy shit… did you seriously copy Milo Youwantstinkypiss’s hairstyle? hahahah
lol I love the inherent insecurity of those that use cuck as their default insult like a pack of apes.
This sounds like something a cuck would say
Is he heading up the new Cuck division?
Give this man a “Tää :D”
good comment right there
“moot, we here at Google are trying to synthesize what you like to call ‘dank memes’ and we’d like your input.”
Moot is a messiah and olev
moot is a traitor and a sellout
>It’s worth noting that 4chan repeatedly shut down message boards associated with racism and the so-called gamergate movement.
This is totally incorrect. He never shut down any boards associated with either. What he DID do was disallow gamergate discussion because he felt as a movement it outgrew the site, like Anonymous or project Chanology; and because it was overtaking legitimate game discussion on /v/, and it involved posting the iinformation of others. It had nothing to do with him viewing the movesment as something negative, as this sentence implies, and he has never taken any steps against racism on any board, much less deleting one over it. /pol/ has always been rife with racism and still is, for instance.
he’s talking about users of 4chan you mongoloid. Moot himself didnt go around shutting down boards
You needed a 4chan Gold Pass to access the secret boards.
TRAITOR
Maybe they’ll get fire tires next.