Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/10/04/martin-shkreli-offers-a-bailou.html
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I saw the post, but I never thought it would be legitimate. This is crazy, but the source of most of the outrage is that Hiro hinted he may close /pol/ and other controversial boards (along with bandwidth hogs like all the porn boards). Basically, Martin Shkreli is trying to save one of the worst alt right cesspools out there.
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Why does anyone take that troll seriously?
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I don’t, but I also didn’t think he would actually post he wanted to save 4chan and then back it up on Twitter.
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What’s the use in just keeping the front page?
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Synergistic Diversification: The sum of the parts is greater than the … hole. 
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LOL. They were made for each other.
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I thought they were the same thing. Have Shkreli and 4chan ever been seen in the same room?
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I don’t know…this seems somehow appropriate.
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Hopefully they’ll get rid of /pol/, the breeding ground of neoreactionaries and extremists.
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I honestly hope they do end up closing /pol/. I browse some boards, mostly /co/, /a/, and /tg/, but it’s almost impossible to enjoy anything on that site with out someone from /pol/ that doesn’t know anything about the board topic coming over and complaining about diversity or something else.
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let it die, i say. good riddance!
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I dunno if closing /pol/ would solve that problem, though. If anything, I think it’d make it worse…
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I’m in the same boat minus /a/. There’s nowhere else with the sheer volume of users talking about the hobbies, and every issue I have is from some random /pol/ fan wandering in.
@alahmnat makes a good point, but removing /pol/ and porn means the blue boards can get advertising and those users will complain for a while and then leave to 8chan or Reddit or somewhere else.
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well I know keep the artist and the art separated but fuck all if I buy a copy of Minecraft now and I am kinda glad the kid is tired of playing it
ETA though I guess Minecraft is pretty much a microsoft property these days but still, eww.
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I’m hoping they all leave for 8chan like a bunch did when they were all freaking out about gamer gate. I just want to talk about stuff without someone going “wtf, I saw Wonder Woman is gay now.” or “what do you mean you can roleplay a trans character in 5e”
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You know the front page can be set to show only NSFW boards? Shit postin’ ahoy!
Actually your biggest bandwidth hogs are the webm enabled boards. Before Moot did that all of 4Chan was averaging 150 gigs, and now it is over 700.
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[I wrote all this while @Irontrousers, @alahmnat, and @emo_pinata were making some of these same points–sorry!]
In the thread that Hiro posted [i think it’s still archived, but I don’t recommend loading it, it’s ~5000 replies and froze my browser for a while], all he said was that he was going to have to make board and ad changes. it was in the replies that anons weighed in with proposals; notably, the deletion of /pol/ (because they suck and also one of the largest bandwidth hogs,) and for the porn boards (because bandwidth hogs and easily available on the greater internet) seemed to be the the greatest consensus.
The problem is that /pol/ was set up to be a “containment board,” give them their own place and everyone else can ignore them. As we know, they leaked out. Twitter started going mainstream around the time of /pol/s creation and /pol/ became more of a breeding-ground and rally point for raids.
So, in deleting /pol/–which everyone but /pol/ wants in theory–the aftermath will be that instead of the usual leaking, it will be a full-blown tsunami of former /pol/ users washing over all the other boards (and the internet generally) and they’re going to be super pissed-off (i.e. more than usual). It may fizzle out, but the ruin they may inflict on the “good” boards could be irreparable, and if they take hold, then 4chan becomes /pol/ with hobbies. Shkreli’s involvement would unquestionably hinge on the keeping of /pol/.
Another notable reply to the thread was an acceptance of how all moves will eventually game out to site death, and an embrace of the beginning of the end.
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Time to move on to 5chan.
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/gif/ allows webms with sound. it really needs to go.
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