@houseoftolstoy Where are you seeing this speculation?

All I've read indicated that a different group of autistic man-children from another site (who were former 4chan users) hacked the site. They released the source code and some screenshots of the server environment - after reviewing it (I do this for a living) it was immediately clear that the site wasn't maintained at all (the infrastructure, not the content) in many years.

There were easily a half-dozen security issues with the operating system alone, which was far from current. The source code was a mess of improvements that weren't written to be maintained - only to function. It wasn't a matter of if, not when, the site would be compromised either by external actors or internal mistake.

The "reveals" also indicated how little infrastructure (and by extension, cost) was needed to keep the site afloat. While that wouldn't confirm or exclude the presence of paid actors, it does reveal how the founder was able to make some money, enough to warrant some sort of value exchange to hand over control to a new owner. The disclosed admin/janitor list certainly had academic (i.e. .edu) emails associated with the site, there were no overtly government actors.

I'm not certain that they were the direct benefactors of USAID money - although some of it could have been used to compensate posters and moderators/janitors (janitor is their their term for a type of moderator).

Whether they come back or not isn't of great concern to me - there are plenty of alternative forums for their low-quality content that are already running with notable user counts. I think they're easily replaceable.

@houseoftolstoy

possible indicators that there are some paid actors behind the scenes with an agenda

I have become an absolute genius at sniffing this shit out.

I cannot always see it. But when I see it, I am correct 100% of the time. Like. EVERY. FUCKING. TIME.

4Chan went down hard a few years ago. And my first thought was - some entity has taken control of this site and it is now a honey pot.

I do not have proof of this, but I never posted anything after that.

And here we are.

This is not the best example, but it fits the pattern. We have nothing but speculation. But when Ellen Pao came along I knew Reddit was doomed. When they took r/atheism out of the default subs, I know the clock was ticking right there.

This is not to say these changes are good or bad, but that the pattern always seems to support Israel, feminism, and leftist policies in general.

Every.

Single.

Time.

There has been some speculation that 4chan has gone down because it was no longer receiving USAID funding. I do not know how much truth there is to it, but considering how many different things were being funded via USAID, I would not be surprised if they were indeed funding it.

But why fund 4chan? For anyone who has not been on the site, there has been a heavy amount of shilling, bait posting, and sliding of topics that are possible indicators that there are some paid actors behind the scenes with an agenda. Perhaps it may not seem clear why they would care about a website full of the most autistic members of the population, but I would not be surprised if they had goals of trying to steer opinions or surpress any voices that were too on target. At the very least having paid actors would give you some indicators of how some Anons are thinking.

Who knows if it will ever come back. While there have been some gems of wisdom to be found (among the many, many quantities of shitposting), 4chan is not something all that irreplaceable. There are many forums for discussion on the internet, and more can pop up at any time. People will just have to adapt and find/create new places.