While the message boards were largely inscrutable to English-speaking audiences, they had a small cult following stateside. Nishimura was the celebrity face of Niconico until he left in 2013. Within a decade, Nishimura became the bad boy of Japanese media, cultivating a career as a self-help guru and even inking a deal with Japanese telecommunications giant Dwango to set up the hugely successful video-sharing site Niconico. That freedom would prove wildly popular in Japan. It’s where they are allowed to say things they don’t need to take responsibility for,” Nishimura would tell The Japan Times years later. “It’s where idiots can be the idiots they want to be. But Nishimura offered users something rare and exciting: the freedom to be completely anonymous. The Japanese-language imageboard is built on several successful text-based usenet and message boards.
As the United States grapples with 4chan’s toxic influence, from its role in enabling the January 6 insurrection to its alleged influence on mass shooters, its clear that attempts to hold someone accountable and perhaps even reduce its role in radicalizing young men will not be possible without a better grasp of its corporate structure.įrom his dorm room in Arkansas in 1999, Hiroyuki Nishimura created 2channel.
