https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37563647

good mameries from politically incorrect 4 chan

Why 4chan is 'struggling to survive'

5 October 2016

The site provides a place to anonymously post text and images about a range of interests, including Japanese anime, video games, cooking, science and cars.

But what keeps many of its 27 million users coming back for more are its more controversial pages.

These include the "politically incorrect" board, in which racist and homophobic comments run rampant.

It has been linked to the rise of the so-called alt-right movement, whose followers are outspoken in their attacks on multiculturalism, globalisation and immigration even if they differ on much else.

Many visitors also head straight to the "random" board, after passing a notice that warns of its mature and potentially damaging content.

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Image caption

Naked photos of the actress Jennifer Lawrence were shared on 4chan

Many of the posts are pornographic and otherwise shocking in nature. It was here that stolen images of naked celebrities were posted following hacks in 2014.

There are several other boards on the site dedicated to adult pictures and videos.

But people also visit to engage in the kind of humour that might get them in trouble elsewhere.

Chris Poole - the site's founder, who now works at Google - had attempted to make 4chan profitable in 2013 by setting up a tool that allowed advertising campaigns to be run on the site for as little $20 (£15.60).

But many of 4chan's users have ad-blockers - so they never see the promotions - and the controversial nature of the posts means many businesses do not want to have anything to do with it anyway.

"4chan is working on scripts to delete unnecessary HTML tags and images to reduce bandwidth cost at this time," he said.

"We [have] started to work with non-harmful ways for users at first. Then, we'll try tough ways."

Markus "Notch" Persson - the creator of Minecraft - tweeted that he was interested in helping, before deleting the post.

It seems nothing has come of this as yet.

The former chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, Martin Shkreli, has also said that he would be interested in helping run the site.

The entrepreneur is best known for buying the rights to a drug and then raising its price from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

"Martin has a talent for sure," Mr Nishimura said.

"People… confirm his skills to make money. I don't know much about his personality, though.

Mr Nishimura posted a message on 4chan's question-and-answer board on Sunday, headlined: "winter is coming" - a reference to Game of Thrones.