Artifact 6

      When he was 15, Christopher looked at a Japanese forum website. He didn’t know that after a few years it would be evolved to have 7 million monthly visits with around 700,000 posts per day. It expanded from 1 discussion board to 48. I think this website is so popular because it is anonymous. People can say whatever they want without anyone actually knowing who they are. There is no registration therefore it is completely unfiltered. I wasn’t aware that this kind of website was available because everyone always tries to get information. I think people tend to be more brutally honest when their identity is hidden. They can say anything they want without getting in trouble for maybe saying the wrong thing. I thought it was interesting that their first discussion board was called /b/. Anonymous is a good word to describe the identity of people while they type on this forum, but it is also the name of the group that protested scientology. I found it interesting that most of the memes on 4chan posted LOLcats. This is funny pictures of cats. The irony is that a man was arrested within 48 hours because he posted a video of him abusing his own cat. Because it was posted on YouTube, the authorities were able to find and arrest him. Some may think this is an issue with privacy, just like the issues with social networking. People are more free and able to be their selves on 4chan. While there may be pros and cons to this, people have more privacy than they could imagine. Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace don’t have enough privacy while websites like 4chan have too much. When will people realize that they are the ones that make decisions? They decide whether or not they put personal information on those social networking sites. They decide whether or not they want to remain anonymous and post what they want. If you have a problem with it, don’t do it. It was comical to me that he said older people may be okay with it because they don’t necessarily understand it. Each individual understand that when they are on certain websites, they may or may not risk that other people can see what they do. I think this website is a great idea because privacy is such a popular subject. I don’t think I would be interested in blogging anonymously merely for the fact that I like to know who people are and what they are saying. I guess you could say I am a nosey person because I like to know things. Remaining anonymous is a great way to freely say whatever you please and getting your feelings out there. People that feel more comfortable using CMC than F2F communication can actually say what they are feeling without being judged. This may help people that have issues such as on the verge of suicide because they have so many thoughts that they just keep inside. An anonymous blogging website is a great idea for all people.