Toxic image board 4chan has managed to stay online for the past seven years—amid boycotts and advertiser flight, after being implicated in several mass shootings, even as it was identified as a source of the conspiracy theories that inspired the January 6 insurrection—thanks, in part, to a $2.4 million investment from a major Japanese toy company.
A partnership agreement, obtained exclusively by WIRED, shows not only how current site owner Hiroyuki Nishimura acquired the far-right message board but also how Japanese industry helped finance the deal.
The text of the deal shows that Nishimura invested $800,000 of his own money, plus $4.8 million from his company—using cash from a major Japanese telecommunications company. But the most surprising part of the deal came from Good Smile Company, which acquired a 30 percent share in 4chan for its $2.4 million investment.
The relationship came to light as a result of New York Attorney General Letitia James' investigation into the Buffalo supermarket mass murder in May 2022. James office is also considering "whether 4chan could face civil or criminal liability for 'promoting, facilitating, or providing a platform to plan and promote violence'" though it appears criminal charges won't be filed.
Stepping back for a moment, here's just a reminder of what 4chan is all about:
It birthed QAnon, grew the incel movement, and was cited by multiple mass shooters around the world as a direct source of inspiration. Its users generated a dizzying amount of disinformation around the 2020 presidential election, deployed swattings to go after their detractors, and produced an enormous amount of far-right, racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic, and queerphobic memes. 4chan users consider the site an American political kingmaker, and it has helped corrode the political culture of Canada, Australia, and Europe.
In short, its a Fount of Fascism.
The Wired article goes on to take a deep dive into other aspects of Nishimura's involvement in toxic social media:
Nishimura founded the image board 2channel in 1999 and quickly cemented himself as a cult figure in Japanese culture. Even before he inspired Chris Poole, 4chan’s founder, to start the English-language knockoff, Nishimura had given millions of Japanese—particularly young men—the freedom to speak anonymously, candidly, and bluntly. That, in turn, generated an ironic, anime-obsessed subculture that traded in a particular brand of hard-right, anti-feminist, anti-Korean, and “identitarian” politics.
That disruptive talent made Nishimura an attractive figure in Japan’s otherwise conservative media culture. In the early 2000s, Nishimura forged a partnership with another young entrepreneur who had risen to become chair of telecommunications firm Dwango: Nobuo Kawakami.
Kawakami and Dwango had set up a Japanese rival to YouTube and were trying to figure out how to grow it beyond just a platform to upload videos ripped from their American competitor. So they brought on Nishimura to apply 2channel’s charm to their new platform, Niconico.
Nishimura’s own company, Future Search Brazil, joined forces with Dwango—journalist Yoshiaki Sei reported that Nishimura took a 20 percent stake in Niconico. And in a matter of years, Niconico became the biggest video streaming platform in Japan.
Disney Company has a licensing agreement with Good Smile, but is letting it lapse in May after becoming aware of Nishimura's ownership of 4chan.
There's much more detail on Nishimura and how an ostensibly benign company selling games and toys is supporting fascist enterprises. But the best character summary of Nishimura comes from his partner Kawakami, via the journalist mentioned above:
“I think Mr. Kawakami’s description of Mr. Nishimura is fair and quite accurate,” Sei says. “Kawakami described Nishimura as a child who tears the legs off from a bug. And that he enjoys that.”
Let's hope it's "game over" for Nishimura.
