Professor Strahilevitz often calls upon the example of real estate to illustrate various exclusion mechanisms. While many of these have been borne out by historical evidence, the analogy to cyberspace is not absolute, in that cyberspace provides modes of interaction which cannot (or would not) be replicated in the physical world. For example, it would be unthinkable for a private developer to provide a space where anyone can enter, their identity completely masked, and say literally anything within the bounds of legality, for all to hear.
In cyberspace, however, such spaces have found a devoted following. Although such sites have attracted both praise and scorn (and been called everything from “a breeding ground for creativity”[1] to “the Internet Hate Machine”[2] anonymous message boards such as the infamous 4chan.org have presented themselves as bastions of un-moderated, uncensored, and often intentionally offensive discourse on the Internet. However, despite their stated aversion toward behavior-regulating mechanisms, these fora employ highly effective exclusionary tactics across their structure.
As the most well-known English-language anonymous message board, 4chan features several unique aspects which have fueled its reputation as both the birthplace of internet memes and an “utter cesspool of humanity.” [3] Although it hosts numerous boards on topics ranging from video games to pornography to cooking, the site’s most popular board is its “Random” board, known by its on-site designation, “/b/”. /b/ contains sixteen pages, with page 0 containing the most recently-updated threads, and page 15 the oldest. Threads which reach the end of page 15 are deleted permanently, as are threads that live past a pre-determined time limit or reach a preset number of posts. During high-traffic times, the entire content of /b/ can turn over in under an hour.
Until recently, all posts on /b/ were automatically anonymous. As a result, discussion is typically fast, loose, and more often than not, intentionally offensive. However, the board has earned a (deserved) reputation as the primordial soup of internet memes; LOLcats (captioned photos of cats), Rick-Rolling (linking someone unknowingly to “Never Gonna Give You Up” by 80s flash-in-the-pan Rick Astley) and countless other viral jokes all originated on /b/.
In exchange for anonymity, however, the site’s administrators reserve extremely broad discretion to exercise its bouncer rights. These rights manifest most commonly in the right to permanently ban users for any reason whatsoever. The board has few enunciated governance rules, all designed to provide its administrators threadbare insulation from liability for the content of the board. Only two are enforced with gusto: no spamming, and no “illegal content” (typically invoked for only the most severe offenses). However, the open nature of the board means that even these rules are sometimes broken, and the site utilizes a notification system by which users can alert administrators to potential violations, and a sizable body of “janitors” to clean out violating material at a moment’s notice.
As Ms. Miller rightly points out, many message boards (anonymous ones in particular) rely exclusively on exclusionary vibes. Denizens of /b/ in particular relies heavily on exclusionary vibes communicated overtly (through shocking content) and linguistically (through a common “language” of memes an catchphrases, analogous to 1337, that are confounding to the outsider)[4]. Users frequently decry any influx of new members who do not share the existing group’s particular brand of dark humor (using terms that are unrepeatable in academic company), and the perceived tone-deafness of new contributors has led to the repeated Balkanization of former 4chan users and a continuing diaspora to newer imitation boards, with names like 7chan and 711chan.
In exchange for anonymity, and counter to their self-described “free-for-all” approach to moderation, both users and administrators of anonymous message boards utilize a series of complex and highly effective exclusionary mechanisms to police their own membership.
[1] SXSW 2011: 4Chan founder Christopher Poole on anonymity and creativity
[2] 4Chan: The Rude, Raunchy Underbelly of the Internet
[4] Put the Blame on Griefers, the Sociopaths of the Virtual World
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