Knew a guy for a while, one of those types who loves to say “most of 4chan isn’t bad, it’s only /b/ and /pol/, here look at this funny meme they made” I rolled my eyes whenever he said something like this but figured he was just in denial.
Then one day I mentioned to him that I cut contact with someone for defending drawn CSAM, explaining that I did it because it’s used to groom minors and accustom them to being sexualized, and his response was “I don’t care, it’s the parents’ responsibility to protect the kids, there should be no legal or moral barrier to what people draw”
Anyone who browses or defends 4chan is a fascist, a pedophile, or most likely both. Every interaction I’ve had with them only gave me further proof.
The only appeal of an unmoderated, anonymous imageboard is to enable these same sorts of people.
Just like how the ideology of Elon Musk has infiltrated every part of X dot com (formerly known as twitter), it doesn’t matter if a pocket of users use 4chan in a “responsible” way, the culture of the sites admins will always reflect om the culture of its users.
No part of a social media/forum site can exist in a vacuum. Not even communities around Mastodon and Lemmy avoid this.