IamA disabled American expatriate in the Philippines who founded 8ch.net (4chan clone where users make boards like Reddit). An Al Jazeera documentary I did over a year ago is on on the frontpage of r/videos. AMA!

>be chillin with your gf

>suddenly, this guy comes up and slaps her in the ass

wat do?

Jesus, that menu. I bet everything costs like $10 too.

New York never again.

hey man some of us are still stuck here.

thanks for the soylent btw, saved me 4 days worth of groceries.

Soylent

lmao, that stuff was so nasty. Glad you enjoyed it though!

How has your quality of life changed from the New York apartment to now living in the Philippines?

Much better now. I have 24/7 care that I can afford, Uber is cheap enough that it only costs ~$3 for a taxi ride (I have this cool lightweight Chinese power wheelchair with lithium ion batteries that's illegal in the US, hehe) and I have many mroe friends here than I ever did in NY.

I recommend anyone disabled that wants to try to make something of themselves just leave the US.

By illegal, I'm guessing you mean it hasn't been through FDA approval that triples its price?

Exactly.

Surely it's more because you an American with a disability? I'd say that would get you further than being an Asian with a disability and living there....,

Indeed, having no income and no skills here would suck. There's no welfare.

Any chinese cartoon recommendations you wish to share with us?

8chan's mascot is Nano from Nichijou, partly due to the key on her back and partly due to her being my favorite character from any anime series. (I guess that's a ``waifu''.)

How do you feel about your AMA being hidden from the frontpage? You went from top 10 to no longer on the top 200 in the matter of 5 minutes.

Typical Reddit behavior to be honest.

Back during my time in 4chan there was a constant chatter of their being paid posters promoting certain ideas or narritive. This seemed to be proven to be able to happen when it was found that many posts were made simultaneously across all boards with the same text, same picture, and strange random numerical filename, multiple times.

On Gamergate related boards and /pol/ there's still this chatter going around but I am not sure if it's because people are used to it, or if there's really forced/automated posting to push agendas on 8ch like there was on 4chan.

So, is 8ch being used as a platform to push narrative by someone or other?

And thanks for an alternative. Seriously, that places was a sinking ship.

If it is I don't have proof either way. I'm sure that companies shill on Reddit as well though, I've seen enough instances of it while investigating startups. Chiefs of marketing posting to Reddit, even CEOs, et cetera.

A lot of comments on the video suggested you are getting taken advantage of by only getting your rent covered in exchange for your work. What is your response to those people?

I was being taken advantage of at the time.

I don't work for him anymore, and have not even been in the US since October 2014. :)

You are a great inspiration to others!

Congratulations on your success Hotwheels.

Do you plan on living indefinitely in the Philippines?

Any plans to visit Japan in the future?

Do you plan on living indefinitely in the Philippines?

Yes.

Any plans to visit Japan in the future?

Actually, yes! One of my friends just moved there so I plan to visit him this summer.

when people upload banned content to 8chan and someone else reports it, do you need to personally look at kiddie porn or gore or whatever to remove it? How much of your day involves removing such content? Has this led to misunderstandings with people who watch you work?

No, volunteers do all of that. I rarely handle the report queue unless it's a DMCA (copyrighted content) issue.

How big is your dick?

6" erect.

Have you tried balut? Do you like it?

Yes and yes. It's very good actually.

In your opinion, do you feel that for the waves of internet users who experienced the rise of the Chans first-hand are better or worse equipped to handle societal interactions on the internet? Did all those troll threads teach a valuable lesson that those who come after will have to learn other ways? What do you feel the legacy impact of Chan culture will be a decade from now?

Better equipped.

I'm pretty sure we'll still have chans in ten years, and I hope that people can learn to appreciate that you can't have freedom of expression without anonymity. The founding fathers knew as much.

What's your opinion on TOR?

I love it!

One thing I always didn't like about 4chan was that it's not actually anonymous from a network perspective, so much is blocked leaks aren't possible, everything can be easily traced back to the poster.

I made a Tor hidden service to combat this on 8chan, it has full posting permissions on some boards, and others minus photos (and some not at all, 8chan is fully customizable for board owners, our version of subreddit "head mods"). It's at http://fullchan4jtta4sx.onion

How do you feel about reddit's move towards becoming a "safe space," and do you think it'll have to sacrifice controversial subs to do so?

Also, are there any subs, minus the obvious illegal ones, that you wouldn't allow on 8chan?

Reddit, being an actual company, always has to show "growth". When users start stagnating, the big wigs start panicking. "Is Reddit hostile and that's why no one is coming? How are we going to show Conde Nast we grew the company this quarter?"

I believe they are probably going to throw out the "problematic" users if it gets bad enough, but they also remember Digg. Whatever they do they'll be careful I'm sure.

What do you feel about the current state of 8chan content wise. ATM, it seems that, aside from videogames and politics, the interests of the user-base are very specialized. How are you focusing on user growth, and where are these people gonna come from?

ATM, it seems that, aside from videogames and politics, the interests of the user-base are very specialized. How are you focusing on user growth, and where are these people gonna come from?

For its first year and a half, 8chan was very specialized. The two major boards were /legion/ (a roleplaying board) and /waifuist/ (a board about celebrity gossip).

8chan continues to be very specialized, and it will likely remain so. I always try to focus on improving the site's features (I'm rewriting the software with a friend: https://infinitydev.org ), what people do with what I made is their business. I don't really have a strategy for attracting users.

"If you build it they will come [maybe]"

I was watching that interview you did and winced when I saw you hitting the tap with your stick to turn it off.

I was curious, with brittle bone disease, do you feel pain at a lower threshold from pressure exerted on your bones or is it the same pain threshold most people have but the bones break before pain kicks in?

I've never been anyone else so I don't know how other people experience pain.

If you want to trade bodies however...

How do you feel about Voat? It's trying to do something very similar to what you did with 8chan, but do you think it'll succeed, at least in the same manner 8chan did?

Well, 8chan is not like any of the other imageboards because you can't make your own board. Voat would be cool if it was more like an anonymous Reddit, but their anon features need work and don't seem to be a priority.

Basically they either need to differentiate themselves or Reddit has to fuck up massively for them to become popular.

How many hate emails do you get in the average week?

Ten on a good week.

Only 10?

If you write me one it will make 11! [email protected]

Very cool site! I run an adult parody of Humble called Hump the Bundle. We've raised several thousand dollars for Able Gamers which supports disabled gamers.

I'll give $1,000 to the charity of your choice right now if you'll run a link to us on your site, and you'll make money from the tips you generate on the link too.

Deal? :)

Sure! Just the homepage?

I know that the OI Foundation could always use the money.

Front page is great! Obviously the more places the better. Ship me your e-mail and I'll send you a link to use. Thanks!

OI Foundation it is, haven't heard of them, I'll have a look now.

[email protected]

How did you just write your own chan? Did you learn programming in high school or just interested in it for a long time?

How did you just write your own chan? Did you learn programming in high school or just interested in it for a long time?

I used to run Wizardchan, which was just an installation of vichan. From running Wizardchan I learned PHP, so after I left that site I knew enough about how vichan worked to add a lot of my own stuff to it, like board creation, ## Board Owner caps, a board stats page, more user scripts, et cetera.

I didn't start from scratch though, I added my stuff to an existing engine.

Hi, thanks for taking the time to talk with us.

I'm wondering where you envision 8chan in the overall current culture of the internet? I'm talking specifically about the debate surrounding "free speech" vs cleaning up "distasteful" content. Do you feel like places like the *chans and reddit can still play a role in this conversation, or is it becoming a situation where unregulated spaces for conversation and debate are becoming marginalized, as opposed to the norm online?

Sorry, I know that's a bit meta, but I appreciate your answer.

They're definitely becoming marginalized. I like the Japanese system: hardly any Japanese news sites even have comment sections because they know everyone's just going to go discuss it on news4vip or newsplus on 2ch.net.

Meanwhile in the West you have crappy comment sections moderated to hell like the one on the Daily Mail, or the ones on Gawker sites (Kotaku et al).

I hope we can make free discourse the norm.

I'm a big proponent of freedom of speech, and that's why I loved 4chan in the beginning. M00t's ted talk about anonymity and free speech inspired me to push my art in a lot of ways. I write fairly offensive books, and believe the right to offend is a big part of free speech.

I've also noticed lately that free speech is under attack. The subbreddit /shitredditsays/ has an image of a person blowdrying a box of "freezed peaches," basically saying they don't think 'hate speech is free speech." M00t banned GamerGate threads claiming it was "harassing speech" and therefor not free speech.

I'm very troubled by all of this and this trend, and would like to commend you for your efforts towards keeping a free speech platform alive on the internet.

Now, with all that out of the way, I would like to know if you believe there are any limits to free speech, and if there are any, what are they?

Now, with all that out of the way, I would like to know if you believe there are any limits to free speech, and if there are any, what are they?

Free speech ends when it breaks the rights of others. Threats are not free speech, for example.

I don't believe "hate speech" exists though. I think that is made up. People should be free to be hateful if they wish, I hate a lot of things.

However, I really believe there is a matter of responsibility that too many people fail to grasp. Anonymous comments are the responsibility of the poster, not the forum's (or chan's) admins. We didn't write them, and the law recognizes as much (Communications Decency Act). Being a "moderator" does not make you the police, and deleting comments doesn't undo crimes. I leave things to the real police, and we have indeed received subpoenas when threats are posted, for example in our latest transparency report one was posted on /islam/.

I guess I'm ignorant but I was under the impression 8ch.net didn't collect IP's.

https://8ch.net/privacy.pdf

What would have to happen for a board to get nuked?

Do you browse most boards on 8chan?

Do you feel that having user created and run boards results in better outlets for specific topics?

What would have to happen for a board to get nuked?

It would need to be just for posting illegal content or it would need to take up tons of resources (for example just stickies full to the post limit with 8MB junk files).

Do you browse most boards on 8chan?

There's over 5000, I browse like 3 regularly. /tech/ is my favorite one at the moment, /operate/ is where people try to get a hold of me for questions about the site, and /n/ is my board for news (it provides the news on the homepage).

Do you feel that having user created and run boards results in better outlets for specific topics?

Yes. I haven't really used Reddit so much so the only thing I can compare it to is 4chan. On 4chan all the boards are managed by one team, "Team 4chan". This is a bureaucracy, nothing gets done. New rules have to be approved by the whole team, a certain board can't have its own CSS, if you dared want to do an AMA (like send an email to a game developer and ask him to come on) it would have to go up through all the levels of centralized bureaucracy before it happens.

Meanwhile on 8chan I hardly do anything. Mark, guy who created /v/, will be like "yeah the guy who made Earthworm Jim is doing an AMA". I will think, "Earthworm Jim? What is that?", but I will say "Good to hear.".

That's the difference. Users are much better at managing all the communities than me. There's simply too many communities for me to spend cycles on all of them.

Thank you for being so based.

Any thoughts on transhumanism?

Do you ever plan on meeting m00t? Have the two of you ever conversed directly?

Any thoughts on transhumanism?

Can't come soon enough.

Do you ever plan on meeting m00t? Have the two of you ever conversed directly?

No plan. I emailed him with a warning that I knew about the mod contract (give us all your dox, no compensation) and asked for his comment before going public, and he went public on the 4chan Tumblr blog. That's the most we've ever conversed, it was quite tense actually haha.

What are your goals? What do you hope to accomplish before you die? Also, I enjoyed (and agree with) your article on eugenics. I'm in a similar (but not the same) boat. Stay frosty.

What are your goals? What do you hope to accomplish before you die?

I want to make a distributed imageboard, like Bitcoin or BitTorrent applied to imageboards. That for me is the endgame in all of this.

I've already accomplished more than I thought I ever would, though.

Are you familiar with http://getaether.net/ then? Nothing says the type of board it is distributing has to be the default one.

Interesting. The big problem with a system like that is combatting spam and dealing with large attachments (images).

Our current distributed project is called either "SRNd" or "NNTP-Overchan" depending on who you ask. It syncs posts over the NNTP (Usenet) protocol. It's working right now, but the frontend is somewhat hard to use and the code is very hard for others to extend (it uses string formatting for HTML templates for example). It also has some known DoS vectors I won't talk about ;)

Our idea is to allow NNTP-Overchan to be one of the potential backends to infinity so IB users know how to use it immediately.

What are your honest feelings about reddit's userbase?

Do you feel that there is a space for persistent comments in a tree form, with some sort of user-driven sorting in the cancer free internet?

What are the biggest disadvantages of the imageboard format?

I don't think most Redditors can really cope with a chan. You have to read the whole thread, not just skim the top comments. Spam is a common occurence. Images are very in your face. There are no accounts and you cannot PM other users outside of writing replies to them one-time and they just have to happen to see it.

I like all those features though, but when imageboard users complain that Reddit is going to take over I don't believe it for a second because 8chan is nothing like Reddit outside of the board creation feature.

What vidya you play?

I got a 3DS recently, but no games yet ;_;

Hey HW, how does care for disabled people compare in the Philippines to the US? I imagine, although much cheaper, there must also be less advancements to work with.

There are already no advancements in the United States. The only thing OI "research" has come up with in the West is that it's incurable and maybe using osteoporosis drugs works sometimes.

Care is much better here because you can pay aides privately. Average wage here is $6/day, for aides I pay around $8.

Any chance on getting more videos of Hachi? Why did you nix that idea?

I nixed the idea due to Hachi getting old and me running out of things to make videos about (once you do the laser pointer thing it's all down hill from there)

What distro do you use?

Arch Linux.

What is the best way to practice programming?

I've been fucking around with Ruby and JS for about 3 years (making small scripts), and have taken classes in C# and Java, but I have yet to make anything major outside of a class project and am considering using libre software/OSes (edit: currently on Windows 7).

Any recommendations?

Any recommendations?

Make something. Especially hack existing open source software and contribute your changes back. 8ch's software is not completely original, I hacked board creation into an existing FOSS imageboard engine called vichan.

Do you have a favourite board and if so, what is it?

EDIT (thought of another question): What's the story surrounding Zoe Quinn supposedly sending herself harassment on Wizardchan?

/tech/

Looking back at the article you posted on the neo-nazi Stormfront-affiliate The Daily Stormer, how do you feel about it?

What do you think of the reaction to it?

I don't regret it. I'm writing an article for them about payment processors actually, as Mr. Anglin, the author, was kicked off of PayPal just like 8ch.

The reaction was juvenile. Don't judge a book by its cover.

One of the biggest issues with any web community (whether it's on Reddit, 8Chan, Facebook or GNU Social) is that it can become an "echo chamber", where people with similar beliefs reinforce said beliefs while marginalizing users with dissenting opinions. Do you fear that the current structure of 8Chan (division of boards, no specific "main page") may exacerbate the issue on your site?

I think that it may, but I think that the situation is even worse on 4chan, even though it doesn't have board creation.

For example, 4chan has quite a few silly global rules, but the most humorous one is that "furry" content is not allowed. Furries are people that are into drawings of people with animal features getting fucked, as you may know.

That's the only reason 8ch.net/furry is so big. If they would have just made a furry board however many years ago ours would be nowhere today.

4chan's /pol/ board tends to be extremely right-wing because all the leftists simply give up and leave, but 8ch has /leftypol/, which is the third most popular politics board on the site after /pol/ (Politically Iincorrect) and /n/ (News).

I don't think it's proper for me to decide what people want to discuss.

I had the other side of a mushroom trip when I went over a third story balcony causing a spinal cord injury last year, putting me in a manual chair. Since then I've had major hurdles even relocating across state lines; how did you manage moving out of the country?

Ouch, sorry to hear that.

Relocating within the United States is always more of a pain for me than relocating outside...the reason is there's so much to do if you're American and disabled. You can't work or else you won't get nursing care, so you have to be on welfare. So that means you have a lot to coordinate, federal SSI transfer, state Medicaid transfer, food stamps if applicable. I moved from New York to New Jersey and back and the sheer amount of paperwork on me from the years 15-18 must fill an 18 wheeler.

Once you're outside of the US where medical laws aren't so strict things change, but again, I am a special case as I have a skill I can take anywhere. You can afford to pay your aides yourself, go to any needed doctors yourself, there's nothing to coordinate and no bureaucrat to wait for. If there is one you just find another company.

Free market at work. I also voted for Ron Paul if you can't tell.

What was the process of moving to the Philippines like? I'm an expat myself but this country is very strict on immigrants. Moving here is not easy.

Find a wife or get a work visa through a company.

I'm doing the second one but I'd rather be doing the first!

Have you ever posed as a toddler? If so, for what purpose?

Nope. I'd be a very fat toddler if I was one, I think that's child abuse in America now ;)

How do you forsee halfchan dying?

Sold to some sjw company or shut down after the new cuck mods go on eventual power trips and ruin what little is left to ruin?

How smug are you knowing that 8chan has accomplished more (joining 2ch.net) in 2 years than halfchan in 10? I think only jlist bothers with halfchan.

Sold to some sjw company or shut down after the new cuck mods go on eventual power trips and ruin what little is left to ruin?

I have no idea, but I know that moot is selling the site, he said as much to the Rolling Stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/4chans-overlord-christopher-poole-reveals-why-he-walked-away-20150313

Whoever buys it is going to shape what happens to the site. It could go good or very, very bad. I personally think it only has three main people who will buy it: either a newly rich San Francisco-area tech guy who got into some startup (good route), a porn company for the ad space (middle route), or a data mining company who wants to "organically" shill products on the site via fake threads about them and sell user information (nightmare route).

Why do you use plebbit for your AMA when you can use 8chan?

The users are here! I'd rather use Voat.co if I wanted tree text only comments actually, Reddit moderators tend to be dicks.

What do you think about the internet here in Philippines? Which ISP you use and how fast?

The internet here sucks. I really want Converge ICT but you have to own property in specific parts of Manila.

Do you feel responsible for illegal content being posted on 8chan since they're using your platform? Is the hassle of all this worth it? If your job became too hectic would you just say 'fuck it' and throw in the towel? What would make you quit? On one hand you've got free speech but on the other hand, you've got the bleak reality of having to be a figurehead for a chan which we all know can be legally and emotionally draining given moots retirement over the fappening and gamergate. I'm just wondering what your outlook is on the responsibility of owning and moderating a controversial image board.

I do not feel responsible and legally am not so I think the hassle is worth it.

The only thing that could make me throw in the towel at this point is going bankrupt.

The only thing that could make me throw in the towel at this point is going bankrupt.

How secure are you and 8chan in that regard at this point?

8chan is secure so long as 2ch backs us, and they seem to have no intention of dropping the project.

I'm secure so long as I can still find freelance work.

Hotwheels, you are a personal hero of mine. Can I shout you out on my album?

Sure!

Mm, I'm debating whether or not it's right to come to you for this question...

I'm a Filipina, except I've never lived in the Philippines before and can't speak a word of Tagalog. I'm moving to Manila next year to finish Grade 11-Grade 12. I guess my family will mix in the 'expatriates' group because my dad's been an expat in other countries throughout Asia.

Any advice for me? Blending in, places to eat, funny experiences?

I don't visit the Philippines quite often, actually. I might start learning a few phrases before moving haha..ha...(my pronunciation is terrible)

Any advice for me? Blending in, places to eat, funny experiences?

You eventually will get used to the constant smell of exhaust and cigarette smoke.

I quickly realized that efficiency is not really a priority here, so learning patience is paramount. There is a huge bridge that connects two malls near me. There is an electric ramp that you just stand on and it carries you on one end and stairs on the other. The architect didn't think that was a problem apparently.

So far as places to eat, there are more American brands here than in most small towns. McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, etc, you'll feel fine.

Also, lots of people speak English, but it does tend to vary with education level.

I think my favorite city here is Kalibo, I've only been there once though. Everyone is much more friendly than in Manila.

Funny experiences...one time I wanted some cough drops, so I sent my aide. She came back, no cough drops. I was still coughing though so I said I wanted to come with her and make sure. I asked the attendant for cough drops, "sorry we don't have". Behind her there were Halls. I said what are those. "Cough suppresant sir". I think that goes back to patience.

How exactly am i supposed to say your websites name in my head? Eightch? Eight-Ch? Eich?

"Eight-chan"

What's the best language to learn for a new programmer, and what's the best way to learn it?

If it's C++, how do I wrap my head around header/multifile shit?

I started with Python, I'm not sure what's the best though. I was 13 at the time.

I've seen the verification pic on your twitter.

1. Do I see KDE there?

2. Which distro?

3. (if the answer to the first question is 'yes') Thoughts on Plasma 5?

KDE on Arch Linux. I use Plasma 5 right now actually! Much better than 4.

I'm so glad to hear the Philippines is treating you well! I'm an American, about to marry a Filipina, and I plan on retiring within the decade at a fairly young age. I have had many people naysay my desire to leave the states and live there, but I don't think they fully comprehend just how well you can live for such a small amount of money, plus the people are super friendly. Any major drawbacks to relocating there? How is the medical care there?

My only gripe with the medical care is how strict it is to get painkiller prescriptions. So many people die here in needless pain, for a 10 year period they didn't even write any morphine prescriptions and were actually sued by the United Nations.

Other than that it's much cheaper and much better quality if you know exactly what you need.

Are your arms long enough to wipe your ass?

Nope, I use my feet.

Oh, one big question to settle things once and for all. A large number of people who do not like 8chan scream "ooh, they host and support child porn!"

The main reason for this is some extremely pixelated screenshots of what could either be a person, a car, or jello pudding. Can't tell, but they take the author's word for it that it's CP.

So can we please have it direct from you:

Does 8chan support/condone/host or in any way allow child pornography?

Does 8chan support/condone/host or in any way allow child pornography?

No.

Do you think Pao and her thugs are about to show up here?

Anything's possible!

Do you think that "big game" or any other big company will come for your life and try to extort you? Also, Do you feel that your the perfect scapegoat to tell people off because of your physical condition? Anyways I just wanted to say your idealisms are wonderful for creating anonymity and keeping it pure free speech /expression online. I wish you the best of luck and never sellout brother! PS hook me up with pic saying anything bout me username :P

I doubt it. Starting an imageboard isn't hard, especially since I open sourced my version with user board creation. (only FOSS engine with that feature)

Killing me wouldn't solve anything, a new one would appear soon after.

How does it feel being a sell-out fucking cripple?

8chan has been a combination of Reddit and 4chan since day one.

I do not hate Reddit and never have, I think the two sites are very different due to their formats though. As I wrote above...

I don't think most Redditors can really cope with a chan. You have to read the whole thread, not just skim the top comments. Spam is a common occurence. Images are very in your face. There are no accounts and you cannot PM other users outside of writing replies to them one-time and they just have to happen to see it.

I like all those features though, but when imageboard users complain that Reddit is going to take over I don't believe it for a second because 8chan is nothing like Reddit outside of the board creation feature.

I look forward to seeing a screenshot of this post on /operate/, /meta/ or both. :^)