Jason Scott Archiving 10 Million Expired 4Chan Threads


The fast-moving image-boards at 4chan are anonymous, transient, nasty, and insanely fecund. Now Jason Scott, rogue archivist, has gotten his hands on dozens of gigabytes of expired threads—that’s five years worth of raw Internet ectoplasm—and is uploading them to the Internet Archive.

If I were teaching Internet Law this fall, this would be a final exam question. Your answer should discuss the privacy, copyright, and defamation issues, but need not be limited to them. Be sure to reread section 230 carefully.