2channel
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese textboard
. In 2007 there were 2.5 million posts made every day. Launched in 1999, it has gained significant influence in Japanese society, comparable to that of traditional mass media such as television, radio, and magazines. As of 2008, the site generates revenue
upwards of ¥100 million per year for its founder Hiroyuki Nishimura
. It is legally operated under Packet Monster Inc., a company based in Telok Ayer
, Singapore
.
, on the campus of University of Central Arkansas
by Hiroyuki Nishimura
, known simply as
The website's scale and management style are unique. It has more than 600 active boards (Japanese ) such as "Social News", "Computers", and "Cooking", making it the most comprehensive forum in Japan. Each board usually has around 600 active threads. Each thread, in turn, contain up to 1000 comments which are anonymous.
2ch operates on innovative forum software which is a major departure from 1980s bulletin board system
s or 1990s forum software such as vBulletin
. Most importantly, nearly everything is done anonymously and voluntarily. A posting in a thread will either (bump
, from Japanese , to raise) or (not bump, from Japanese , to lower) its position in the thread list; "sage-ed" posts have no effect on its position. Threads may be "sage-ed" if the thread is disliked, or to keep it from cluttering the main thread list, or to prevent idle browsers from flooding in and trolling
the thread at the top of the list.
Each thread is limited to 1000 postings at maximum, and a new thread must be opened (by some anonymous user, self-elected during discussion) to continue discussion. This prevents the rotting of old threads and keeps active topics refreshed. It also saves bandwidth, which is a major concern on a forum as large as 2ch. Old threads are moved to a paid archive, then eventually deleted.
s which require some form of registration, usually coupled with email verification for further identification of an individual. On 2ch, a name field is available but seldom used. Entering one's name in the field, unless you do so with an obvious purpose, would identify you as a newbie who does not understand the forum, an administrator, or someone attempting to be a Web celebrity.
The reason for allowing anonymous posting was given in an interview with the founder of 2ch in the Japan Media Review
:
However, open proxies are banned from posting on 2channel.
and flooding) and posts which could be classed as slander under Japanese law
, and could result in legal action being undertaken against 2channel. Also, posts which declare intentions to commit a crime would be referred to the police, due to events such as the Neomugicha incident
.
Incidents such as this have happened in the past. 2channel, with its massive size and anonymous posting, is abundant with slander, hate speech
and defamation against public figures, institutions, minorities, and specific ethnic groups. Though the site has a rule to delete illegal postings defined under Japanese law, the scale and anonymous nature of the site makes a prompt response difficult. In certain occasions, 2channel was accused by some for being reluctant to remove defamatory postings.
In January 2007, a small court in Japan, making a judgment on yet another slander case, announced that 2channel's holding company was bankrupt and it would be repossessed. This claim was openly mocked by Nishimura on 2channel's splash page, and nothing of the sort happened, although 2channel's Japanese ISP ended its operations.
, a popular video sharing site contextually related to 2channel, support for the then-ruling conservative LDP
was notably higher than those conducted by news papers before its rule collapsed.
For some years, Japanese traditional newspapers and media avoided indicating 2channel by its own name, and instead, indirectly referred to it as "anonymous message board on the internet" when related incidents occurred. Human rights activists are often frowned upon and mocked at 2channel, and often called "anti-Japan (anti-patriotic)", "Korean", "communists" in derogative context.
having explicit sexual context and engaging expressions, in many cases intertwined with hate speech context. In accordance, many of its advertisement arrangements are affiliated links to commercial sex-oriented sites, by using its referral system.
projects such as the United Devices Cancer Research Project and SETI@home
. 2ch is the current leader of the UD project, with the highest results and point total, as well as having the largest number of participants.
Users will often attempt to bypass this system by removing the h from http in URLs, encouraging others to copy and paste the link, thus avoiding the referral page. For example, http://ja.wikipedia.org/ would become ttp://ja.wikipedia.org/.
the woman, and seeing no-one else coming to her aid, the poster told the man to stop bothering the woman. The two struggled for a short time while the other passengers used this distraction to call the conductor, who took control of the situation.http://www.rinji.tv/densha/
This poster was an extremely introverted, socially inept otaku
. Never having done such a thing before in his life, he was amazed to find that the woman was thanking him deeply for saving her from harassment. They exchanged addresses and parted ways. The poster, upon returning home, began talking with other posters in the thread and was nicknamed ("Train Man") for his bravery.
A bit later, Densha received a package from the woman he had saved. This package, originally thought to be a generic thank-you gift, turned out to be an expensive tea set. Flabbergasted, he turned to the 2channelers for advice: he was convinced that such a gift was too expensive to be a mere thank-you gift. Densha then contacted the woman and began meeting her regularly, all the while posting updates on 2ch and discussing the matter with other posters. Following their collective advice, he got a haircut, purchased new clothes, and began to come out of his shell. After seeing her for a while, his personality had changed and this culminated a few months later in Densha confessing his love for the woman. She accepted and when the 2channelers were informed of this there was a mass celebration; posts began flowing in congratulating the new couple.http://www.rinji.tv/densha/congratulations.htm
Because 2ch has an enormous impact on net culture in Japan, this story quickly spread throughout the media and became an instant hit. Its almost fairytale-like simplicity and emotional power drew people to the story, and a copy of the original threads relating to the story was published in a book. Since then, there have been four manga
adaptations of the story; a feature film which reached #1 in the box office upon its release; and a hugely popular TV live-action drama aired during 2005. According to Densha Otoko and Hermes
(the nickname of the woman; named after the brand of the tea-set she sent him), they are still together.
performer Masashi Tashiro
as Time Magazine
's Person of the Year
. This act was soon dubbed the by 2ch users. Tashiro was infamous in the Japanese media for committing several crimes, including peeping up a woman's skirt using a camcorder
, using stimulant
s twice, peeping in a male bath house and causing a car accident. 2ch programmers developed many scripts with whimsical names like the , , and the for sending automated repeating votes. The "Super Tashiro Cannon" was so powerful it crashed Time's server. (The next script, the "Satellite Cannon -Tashiro-" was developed, but never used.) Due to the votes of 2ch users, he got to the No. 1 position temporarily on December 21, 2001. However, Time's staff realized that something was unusual, and Tashiro was removed as a candidate.
network called 'IRC@2ch', whose main IRC and web server are both hosted on irc.2ch.net. The network is rather small with three servers, no services, and fewer than 2000 users. The chat in most channels is in Japanese, using the ISO-2022-JP encoding. The network maintains a list over what channels are currently the most active on its web page.
Textboard
A textboard is a simple kind of internet forum that does not require registration. While popular in Japan, they remain relatively unknown outside of it, in contrast to imageboards .-Features:...
. In 2007 there were 2.5 million posts made every day. Launched in 1999, it has gained significant influence in Japanese society, comparable to that of traditional mass media such as television, radio, and magazines. As of 2008, the site generates revenue
Revenue
In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....
upwards of ¥100 million per year for its founder Hiroyuki Nishimura
Hiroyuki Nishimura
is the founder and a former administrator of the most accessed Japanese message board site 2channel. He currently holds a position of Director at Niwango Inc., known for its service Nico Nico Douga.In Japan, he is usually known by his given name, Hiroyuki....
. It is legally operated under Packet Monster Inc., a company based in Telok Ayer
Telok Ayer
Telok Ayer is a historic district located in Singapore's Chinatown within the Central Business District, straddling the Outram Planning Area and the Downtown Core under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's urban planning zones.-Etymology:...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
.
Overview
2ch was opened on May 30, 1999 in a college apartment in Conway, ArkansasConway, Arkansas
Conway is the county seat of Faulkner County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 58,908 at the 2010 census, making Conway the seventh most populous city in Arkansas. It is a principal city of the Little Rock–North Little Rock–Conway Metropolitan Statistical Area which had...
, on the campus of University of Central Arkansas
University of Central Arkansas
The University of Central Arkansas is a state-run institution located in the city of Conway, the seat of Faulkner County, north of Little Rock and is the fourth largest university by enrollment in the U.S. state of Arkansas, and the third largest college system in the state. The school is most...
by Hiroyuki Nishimura
Hiroyuki Nishimura
is the founder and a former administrator of the most accessed Japanese message board site 2channel. He currently holds a position of Director at Niwango Inc., known for its service Nico Nico Douga.In Japan, he is usually known by his given name, Hiroyuki....
, known simply as
The website's scale and management style are unique. It has more than 600 active boards (Japanese ) such as "Social News", "Computers", and "Cooking", making it the most comprehensive forum in Japan. Each board usually has around 600 active threads. Each thread, in turn, contain up to 1000 comments which are anonymous.
2ch operates on innovative forum software which is a major departure from 1980s bulletin board system
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...
s or 1990s forum software such as vBulletin
VBulletin
vBulletin is a proprietary Internet forum software produced by Jelsoft Enterprises and vBulletin Solutions, both subsidiaries of Internet Brands. It is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database server.-History:...
. Most importantly, nearly everything is done anonymously and voluntarily. A posting in a thread will either (bump
Bump (internet)
To bump a thread on an Internet forum is to post a reply to it purely in order to raise the thread's profile. This will typically return it to the top of the list of active threads...
, from Japanese , to raise) or (not bump, from Japanese , to lower) its position in the thread list; "sage-ed" posts have no effect on its position. Threads may be "sage-ed" if the thread is disliked, or to keep it from cluttering the main thread list, or to prevent idle browsers from flooding in and trolling
Troll (Internet)
In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response...
the thread at the top of the list.
Each thread is limited to 1000 postings at maximum, and a new thread must be opened (by some anonymous user, self-elected during discussion) to continue discussion. This prevents the rotting of old threads and keeps active topics refreshed. It also saves bandwidth, which is a major concern on a forum as large as 2ch. Old threads are moved to a paid archive, then eventually deleted.
Culture
Anonymous posting
One of the most distinctive features of 2ch is the complete freedom of anonymous posting. This is a large departure from most English language internet forumInternet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
s which require some form of registration, usually coupled with email verification for further identification of an individual. On 2ch, a name field is available but seldom used. Entering one's name in the field, unless you do so with an obvious purpose, would identify you as a newbie who does not understand the forum, an administrator, or someone attempting to be a Web celebrity.
The reason for allowing anonymous posting was given in an interview with the founder of 2ch in the Japan Media Review
Japan Media Review
Japan Media Review is an English academic online journal dedicated to the Japanese press.The Japan Media Review describes itself as "an online-only journal that examines how emerging technologies are changing the practice, ethics, law, business and politics of journalism in Japan.The Japan Media...
:
- Q: Why did you decide to use perfect anonymity, not even requiring a user name?
- A: Because delivering news without taking any risk is very important to us. There is a lot of information disclosure or secret news gathered on Channel 2. Few people would post that kind of information by taking a risk. Moreover, people can only truly discuss something when they don't know each other.
- If there is a user ID attached to a user, a discussion tends to become a criticizing game. On the other hand, under the anonymous system, even though your opinion/information is criticized, you don't know with whom to be upset. Also with a user ID, those who participate in the site for a long time tend to have authority, and it becomes difficult for a user to disagree with them. Under a perfectly anonymous system, you can say, "it's boring," if it is actually boring. All information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will work.
However, open proxies are banned from posting on 2channel.
Free speech and derogatory language
The only type of posts which are not allowed are vandalism posts (for example, spammingSpam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...
and flooding) and posts which could be classed as slander under Japanese law
Japanese law
-Historical Developments:Pre-Modern History The early law of Japan was heavily influenced by Chinese law. Little is known about Japanese law prior to the seventh century, when the Ritsuryō was developed and codified. Before Chinese characters were transplanted and adopted by the Japanese, the...
, and could result in legal action being undertaken against 2channel. Also, posts which declare intentions to commit a crime would be referred to the police, due to events such as the Neomugicha incident
Neomugicha incident
The is the name given to the 2000 hijacking of a Japanese bus by a user of internet forum 2channel after placing a warning on the website.An hour after posting a cryptic threat in a thread with the name "Neomugicha" , the 17-year-old youth hijacked a bus "the Wakakusu" in Dazaifu, Fukuoka, Japan,...
.
Incidents such as this have happened in the past. 2channel, with its massive size and anonymous posting, is abundant with slander, hate speech
Hate speech
Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic....
and defamation against public figures, institutions, minorities, and specific ethnic groups. Though the site has a rule to delete illegal postings defined under Japanese law, the scale and anonymous nature of the site makes a prompt response difficult. In certain occasions, 2channel was accused by some for being reluctant to remove defamatory postings.
In January 2007, a small court in Japan, making a judgment on yet another slander case, announced that 2channel's holding company was bankrupt and it would be repossessed. This claim was openly mocked by Nishimura on 2channel's splash page, and nothing of the sort happened, although 2channel's Japanese ISP ended its operations.
Affinity towards conservative politics
There are some indications by Japanese internet news media and sources, assuming 2channel as a major foothold for "net-uyoku" or "internet right-wing" nationalists and patriotic supporters. On a survey conducted on Nico Nico DougaNico Nico Douga
is a popular video sharing website in Japan managed by Niwango, a subsidiary of Dwango. Its nickname is "Niconico" or "Nico-dō", where "nikoniko" is the Japanese ideophone for smiling. Nico Nico Douga is the thirteenth most visited website in Japan...
, a popular video sharing site contextually related to 2channel, support for the then-ruling conservative LDP
Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)
The , frequently abbreviated to LDP or , is a centre-right political party in Japan. It is one of the most consistently successful political parties in the democratic world. The LDP ruled almost continuously for nearly 54 years from its founding in 1955 until its defeat in the 2009 election...
was notably higher than those conducted by news papers before its rule collapsed.
For some years, Japanese traditional newspapers and media avoided indicating 2channel by its own name, and instead, indirectly referred to it as "anonymous message board on the internet" when related incidents occurred. Human rights activists are often frowned upon and mocked at 2channel, and often called "anti-Japan (anti-patriotic)", "Korean", "communists" in derogative context.
Sexually explicit context and expressions
2channel is also noted for posts and Shift JIS artShift JIS art
Shift_JIS art is artwork created from characters within the Shift JIS character set, a superset of ASCII intended for Japanese usage. Naturally there are many similarities between Shift_JIS artwork and ASCII art....
having explicit sexual context and engaging expressions, in many cases intertwined with hate speech context. In accordance, many of its advertisement arrangements are affiliated links to commercial sex-oriented sites, by using its referral system.
Participation
2ch members participate in various distributed computingDistributed computing
Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...
projects such as the United Devices Cancer Research Project and SETI@home
SETI@home
SETI@home is an Internet-based public volunteer computing project employing the BOINC software platform, hosted by the Space Sciences Laboratory, at the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States. SETI is an acronym for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence...
. 2ch is the current leader of the UD project, with the highest results and point total, as well as having the largest number of participants.
Referral system
2channel uses a referral system for any links to external websites posted on the forum. People clicking on a link are first sent to a page filled with advertisements on the ime.nu domain where a link to the actual site is placed. Apart from collecting revenue from the 2channel visitors it also attracts website owners of the linked pages who check their statistics and can't link it back to 2channel.Users will often attempt to bypass this system by removing the h from http in URLs, encouraging others to copy and paste the link, thus avoiding the referral page. For example, http://ja.wikipedia.org/ would become ttp://ja.wikipedia.org/.
Densha Otoko
Between March and May 2004, an anonymous user posted in a sub-forum for single men to decry his woes. His post detailed an event that had happened that day as he was riding the train. According to his account, he was sitting on the train when he noticed an attractive woman. Suddenly, a drunken man entered the car and bothered many passengers, who did not offer any resistance to his disturbance. This man then began to sexually harassSexual harassment
Sexual harassment, is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment is illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and...
the woman, and seeing no-one else coming to her aid, the poster told the man to stop bothering the woman. The two struggled for a short time while the other passengers used this distraction to call the conductor, who took control of the situation.http://www.rinji.tv/densha/
This poster was an extremely introverted, socially inept otaku
Otaku
is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga or video games.- Etymology :Otaku is derived from a Japanese term for another's house or family , which is also used as an honorific second-person pronoun...
. Never having done such a thing before in his life, he was amazed to find that the woman was thanking him deeply for saving her from harassment. They exchanged addresses and parted ways. The poster, upon returning home, began talking with other posters in the thread and was nicknamed ("Train Man") for his bravery.
A bit later, Densha received a package from the woman he had saved. This package, originally thought to be a generic thank-you gift, turned out to be an expensive tea set. Flabbergasted, he turned to the 2channelers for advice: he was convinced that such a gift was too expensive to be a mere thank-you gift. Densha then contacted the woman and began meeting her regularly, all the while posting updates on 2ch and discussing the matter with other posters. Following their collective advice, he got a haircut, purchased new clothes, and began to come out of his shell. After seeing her for a while, his personality had changed and this culminated a few months later in Densha confessing his love for the woman. She accepted and when the 2channelers were informed of this there was a mass celebration; posts began flowing in congratulating the new couple.http://www.rinji.tv/densha/congratulations.htm
Because 2ch has an enormous impact on net culture in Japan, this story quickly spread throughout the media and became an instant hit. Its almost fairytale-like simplicity and emotional power drew people to the story, and a copy of the original threads relating to the story was published in a book. Since then, there have been four manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
adaptations of the story; a feature film which reached #1 in the box office upon its release; and a hugely popular TV live-action drama aired during 2005. According to Densha Otoko and Hermes
Hermès
Hermès International S.A., or simply Hermès is a French high fashion house established in 1837, today specializing in leather, lifestyle accessories, perfumery, luxury goods, and ready-to-wear...
(the nickname of the woman; named after the brand of the tea-set she sent him), they are still together.
Masashi Tashiro
In 2001, 2ch users voted en-masse for Japanese TVTelevision
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
performer Masashi Tashiro
Masashi Tashiro
is a former Japanese television performer and the founding member of the band Rats & Star. Tashiro was a tenor vocalist for Rats & Star, and later on made himself a name as a TV entertainer in Japan...
as Time Magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
's Person of the Year
Person of the Year
Person of the Year is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."- History :The tradition of selecting a Man of the Year...
. This act was soon dubbed the by 2ch users. Tashiro was infamous in the Japanese media for committing several crimes, including peeping up a woman's skirt using a camcorder
Camcorder
A camcorder is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage...
, using stimulant
Stimulant
Stimulants are psychoactive drugs which induce temporary improvements in either mental or physical function or both. Examples of these kinds of effects may include enhanced alertness, wakefulness, and locomotion, among others...
s twice, peeping in a male bath house and causing a car accident. 2ch programmers developed many scripts with whimsical names like the , , and the for sending automated repeating votes. The "Super Tashiro Cannon" was so powerful it crashed Time's server. (The next script, the "Satellite Cannon -Tashiro-" was developed, but never used.) Due to the votes of 2ch users, he got to the No. 1 position temporarily on December 21, 2001. However, Time's staff realized that something was unusual, and Tashiro was removed as a candidate.
IRC@2ch
There's also an IRCInternet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
network called 'IRC@2ch', whose main IRC and web server are both hosted on irc.2ch.net. The network is rather small with three servers, no services, and fewer than 2000 users. The chat in most channels is in Japanese, using the ISO-2022-JP encoding. The network maintains a list over what channels are currently the most active on its web page.
See also
- 2channel Shift JIS art
- Futaba ChannelFutaba Channel, or Futaba for short, is an internet forum in Japan. It is a popular Japanese imageboard dealing in otaku and underground culture.-Origin:Futaba Channel was set up on August 30, 2001, as a refuge for 2channel users when 2channel was in danger of shutting down...
(2chan) - 2002 Japan animal cruelty case2002 Japan animal cruelty caseThe was an animal cruelty case involving the torture and death of a cat in Japan. The case was notable as Japanese animal abuse laws had previously been lax and seldom enforced....
- 4chan4chan4chan is an English-language imageboard website. Launched on October 1, 2003, its boards were originally used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime...
External links
- 2ch.net – The 2ch site
- 2-Ten ("ni-ten") – 2ch reference (also available as a book from Amazon.jp)
- English list and navigation of 2ch boards at 4-ch.net
- The Dynamism of 2channel – a sociological study by Naohiro Matsumura et al. presented at the "Social Intelligence Design International Conference 2003"
- 2NN – 2ch News Navigator
- 2ch Times – 2ch Times, news portal based upon 2ch data
- A discussion of 2ch-type boards v. "Western" forum softwares
- 2channel post 1.2.3. 4. 5. – Watashi to Tokyo(Blog)
- 2channel founder says don't blame him for criminals' posts