4Chan's Moot Does TED Talk
For those of you unfamiliar with the TED Conferences & TED Talks, you should be. These conferences have an extremely wide variety of speakers that talk about "ideas worth spreading," mainly dealing with technology, entertainment, & design. The only real requirement is that the speeches have to be under 18 minutes in length. I don't think I've ever seen a bad or boring TED Talk- these things are really great stuff to watch, & the foundation is kind enough to post their presentations online. Some past TED Talk presenters include Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Richard Dawkins, Bill Gates, the founders of Google, & various Nobel Prize winners. & now, 4Chan founder Christopher "moot" Poole can join their ranks.
Moot's speech, which was given at a TED conference back in February & just recently published online, is mainly about anonymity on the Internet. What better subject for the creator of one of the most controversial & uncensored websites in the entire world wide web. He discusses the history of the site, including the various memes it's created. Moot specifically points out that 4chan doesn't have an archive or user registration, allowing users to act in ways they not even on other online forums. Of course the topic of how the site gamed the Time 100 poll was brought up, & this goes back to anonymity by discussing the discussing the Anonymous denizens of 4chan & their efforts to protest Scientology.
Of all the bad & dark things 4chan is known for & associated with, Moot made sure to mention the case of Dusty the cat, who in a YouTube video was beaten badly by his teenage owner just for laughs. Cats of course being the only weakness of Anonymous sought to rectify the situation. With 4chan's entire Anonymous community put to the task of finding out who the kid was, they discovered his name within 24 hours & had him arrested within 48.
At the end of the talk, moot mentions how we're moving towards a lack of privacy online. Specifically pointing out social networks & the increasingly private rights they're denying us. Considering the controversy going on with Facebook has only increased since this presentation was given, this is a very timely discussion indeed. & then the FAQ at the end is pretty amusing as well. Check out the embedded video above to see it all in its entirety.