Tumblr-4Chan Raids of 2014
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The 4chan-Tumblr Raids of 2014 was an online culture war that lasted for the entire day of July 4, 2014, and would cause smaller raids on both websites between July and September, and would resurface again during the Gamergate controversy during December. Before the Tumblr raid into 4chan, both websites had have a semi-rivalry with each other. Tumblr was more moderate, had a more constructed main page (called the Dash), and a customizable homepage that used HTML, while 4chan was more passionate, more alt-right, and had a weaker website design.[1]
Background
[edit]Pre-2014 events
[edit]The Tumblr-4chan rivalry started further back than 2014. Back then, in November 2010, 4chan was planning Operation Overlord, which was a plan to DDoS the Tumblr website via a LOIC flood on November 14, 5 pm EST. However, at around 5 PM EST, the 4chan website was temporarily down, which was speculated to be caused by Tumblr. Several Tumblr sites later that day would also be temporarily offline, while 4chan would go back up, however, would often result in a 404 page.[2]
Lead-up to the raid
[edit]At 3:13 pm, June 9, 2014, user shutdown4chan posted a message with the header being "It’s time to shutdown 4chan.org" on Tumblr. The justification of Tumblr's raid on 4chan was that they were "literal Nazis and far-right racists using brainwashing" and that they were the "worst places online". They would end the post by saying that the raid will occur on July 4, 2014, and saying that any post matters. To this day, the post has 779 likes, 3 comments, and 1282 reblogs.[3]
Two days after the first post, shutdown4chan would make another post saying "Oh wow, this has really taken off. I've been quite busy with my finals this week but will be back soon with more info and more fighting spirit."[4]
On June 21, 2014, the user would release a "bigotry" about 4chan. The user would state that "every time I visit 4chan, it's striking how homophobic, sexist, racist and anti-Semitic its members are... ...you don't get to treat other people like trash and then demand that they take you seriously. You will get no respect as long as you show no respect to other people. Words have consequences, even though they can hide behind anonymity."[5]
The first raid
[edit]On Friday, July 4, 2014, several posts were made on /b/ and /pol/[6] promoting pro-feminist ideals. shutdown4chan would reply on Tumblr thanking the people that were raiding the boards. Several posts by the raiders would have their accounts banned. The raids that Tumblr would make on /b/ and /pol/ were futile and weak, and 4chan would later retaliate and start another raid on the Dash.[6] Gore, porn, and anti-feminist blogs were posted on the Dash by the 4chan raiders on the pro-feminist tags of Tumblr, some of the major tags being attacked was #LGBTQ and #FEMINISM.[7] A post by a certain raider said to input a certain string of characters into notepad that would "stop the 4chan raid". The string of characters would actually cause the deletion of System32 from the computer. A reported 41 computers were broken.[8] A petition was set up to ban 4chan with 7 points of justification, however, it received massive disapproval. A petition was made by 4channers claiming that "all users of Tumblr be labelled as mentally handicapped landwhales." It would get ~15,000 signatures.[6]
Aftermath of the first raid
[edit]On June 12, 2014, a thread started on The Escapist by a former 4chan user that would use Tumblr by the time of the post, about if 4chan went too far about the July 4 raids. It would receive 52 replies.[9]
Supposedly, another raid by 4chan happened on July 20, 2014.[10]
On 2019, u/obama_bin_bidenxxx posted on Reddit about how he posted on Tumblr about a picture where if you deleted System32, you would stop the 4chan raids in Tumblr. The title of this post was "I miss posting this on Tumblr during the raid and bricking computers".[8]
Conspiracy behind creation
[edit]There was a theory behind the cause of the raid where a /pol/ user created the shutdown4chan account and would cause the raid against 4chan.[1]
Gamergate controversy
[edit]A raid by Tumblr would happen throughout December 7-December 9, following the Gamergate controversy. The raid by Tumblr would only occur on /pol/ promoting anti-racist ideals. User shutdown4chan would take this raid as a victory, however, there was a total disapproval in the replies section of said post.[11][1] This raid would have a total of ~10,300 posts posted throughout December 7–9.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d Hagen, Sal (October 2023). "4chumblr's divorce: Revisiting the online culture wars through the 2014 Tumblr-4chan raids". Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 29 (5): 1283–1307. doi:10.1177/13548565231190008. ISSN 1354-8565.
- ^ Siegler, M. G. (2010-11-14). "Did Tumblr Just Reverse Take Down 4Chan?". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2024-10-26.
- ^ "#ShutDown4chan". Tumblr. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
- ^ "#ShutDown4chan". Tumblr. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
- ^ "Bigotry on 4chan". Tumblr. Retrieved 2024-10-25.
- ^ a b c Internet Historian (2017-01-20). The Tumblr-4chan Wars. Retrieved 2024-10-25 – via YouTube.
- ^ "2014 Tumblr-4chan Raids". Know Your Meme. 2014-07-05. Retrieved 2024-10-26.
- ^ a b obama_bin_bidenxxx (2019-11-19). "Yup, a reported 41 c…". r/4chan. Retrieved 2024-10-26.
- ^ "So the tumblr and 4chan war..did 4chan go too far?". The Escapist Forums. 2014-07-12. Retrieved 2024-10-26.
- ^ "More Warning for the 4chan Raid on July 20th". Tumblr. Retrieved 2024-10-26.
- ^ "#ShutDown4chan". Tumblr. Retrieved 2024-10-26.