4chan is a site meant to shock, expert says
Posted Oct 16, 2015 01:15:39 PM.
Last Updated Oct 19, 2015 01:01:48 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The online forum used to make a threat towards Wilfrid Laurier University, is known for its violent and shocking posts.
4chan was also used in connection to the deadly shooting in Oregon where a gunman killed nine people.
Associate Professor Aimée Morrison at the University of Waterloo works in digital humanities and new media design and theory.
She tells 570 News that this is exactly the kind of site where these threats would be made.
“4chan has a culture of one-upmanship, to be deemed an expert user of 4chan you have to produce the most shocking things and the most violent things…there are overlaps between the 4chan demographic and the demographic that tends to engage in public acts of violence which is to say young, white men.”
This isn’t the first time 4chan has stirred up trouble in our area. Morrison highlights an incident that took place locally a few years ago.
“A University of Guelph student attempted to commit suicide in his dorm room while live streaming over 4chan…and then that person became quite famous for attempting to do that…so that is exactly the site where this sort of thing would happen.”
UW Associate Professor Jennifer Schulenberg is in the Sociology and Legal Studies department and says that anyone can post anything online and it’s hard to know who is responsible for a specific post.
“Because of the fact that 4chan is completely anonymous, it becomes a little bit more dangerous because you can’t link it to a person. So if it’s a hoax or not is difficult to discern but you simply cannot take that chance.”
She adds it’s not surprising that the RCMP and FBI are involved.
“The nature of the internet is international, so it’s very difficult to locate users across international boundaries unless you have cooperation between local, federal, and international agencies.”
Police have confirmed that the post was not made by a WLU student and believe it came from outside the country.
