4chan Founder Christopher ‘moot’ Poole Joins Google

Christopher “moot” Poole, founder and former owner of 4chan, has announced that he has joined Google. This information was later confirmed by the head of Google’s social efforts, Bradley Horowitz.

In a blog post, Poole wrote that he found himself continually “drawn to their intelligence, passion and enthusiasm” at Google and that he cannot wait “to contribute my own experience from a dozen years of building online communities and to begin the next chapter of my career at such an incredible company.”

Created in 2003, 4chan was based on similar image sharing boards such as 2chan – the founder of which Poole (aka “moot”) sold the site to back in September of last year. 4chan was the birthplace of Anonymous, the internet group who launches cyber attacks on those that it sees as a threat to free speech; most recently they have been targeting ISIS and claim to have stopped at least one terror attack so far.

4chan was also the tinder-box in which the GamerGate consumer movement was sparked off in 2014. However, many GamerGaters moved over to 8chan as a result of supposed censorship on 4chan. Regardless, 4chan is still seen to many as a bastion of free-speech online.

Some of Poole’s fans are not entirely happy with him partnering up with Google. Tumblr user kalberto-franklin wrote, “what are you doing. [sic] Google is a huge enemy of privacy. This is like you taking a job with Facebook.”

Jack Hadfield is a British libertarian writer who just can’t control his cishet white male privilege. You can follow him on Twitter here: @ToryBastard_.