Whenever popular media outlets start talking about 4chan, you know something terrible just happened. Although there’s no shortage of disgusting and offensive content on the website, the majority of what’s posted to 4chan is just harmless discussion accompanied by relevant pictures. That being said, every now and then there’s a post like the one federal authorities are investigating, which could be tied to the recent shooting in Oregon.
Federal law enforcement officials said they were examining a conversation on 4chan, the anonymous online message board, as well as other social media to try to determine whether any of it was linked to the gunman. In the 4chan conversation, one poster writes: “Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the northwest.” These kinds of threats may not be credible in any way; 4chan is a sprawling, anonymous group of web forums, and 4chan users are not required to identify themselves, even with a user name. That makes the site a haven for the kind of people who are interested in declaring things anonymously on the Internet. Also, 4chan message threads often disappear after a few days, granting what’s said on the site a feeling of impermanence.
