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Whether or not I was taken serious in the actual channel, I think what I have said needs to be read carefully, and needs to be considered.

 

I'm more the well aware of the stigma 4chan holds. More or less everyone considers it to be nothing more then ridden with posts by Anon, or the constant display of memes, or just general attempts to either gross each other out, annoy each other to death, and just be idiots. But that's only the section of the site /b/, which is infamous because of it's "No Rule" policy. What may not be known, however, is that /b/ is looked down upon by almost every other part of the site.

 

It's also true that there are parts of the site that deal with 18+ content. However in order to access these parts, you must first agree that you understand the following area is 18+ meaning you can't accidentally stumble upon it. But even then, 4chan is mostly SFW, where posting pornographic or extra violent materials is a permanent ban offense. Each section of the site also has a dedicated team of moderators who diligently watch the content in each section. Sometimes they may be a bit slow, but more often then not threads created with the basis of NSFW content are gone within minutes of being created. Users report it, and use special posting words to prevent the thread from being floated to the top of the page where more people would see it.

 

Most of all, 4chan allows direct linking. Meaning you can bypass the entire thread and any other offensive language or images that may be within it to simply show what you want. It's like direct linking off of an image hosting site like Photobucket.

 

Which brings me to my point. The urls aren't banned because you're worried about the users. The urls are banned due to the fact that they're "4chan" which, when you and the others who more then likely suggested the idea hear, think of /b/, world of no rules, gross out images, lewd amounts of swearing, racism, and all around offensive actions. But this is only a small section of the site. And in retrospect, what's to stop me from simply transferring my offensive image of choice elsewhere to sucker people into clicking it? I can very easily host porn on Photobucket, Imageshack, my own free website, or heck, even the forums, hidden away in some random post on a forgotten board. Eventually the mods of said sites will find it, delete it, and punish me, but the exact same thing would happen if I posted it on 4chan. Yet, it's regarded as foul.

 

I suppose one would argue it's because 4chan is infamous for it, and other site are safe from it. But is that honestly true? A site like Youtube, for example, is home to videos chalk full of swearing and racism, like the rantings of the Angry Video Game Nerd, the promotional videos of the Westboro Baptist Church, or even in popular Youtube Poops named things like "Double Nigger". Blog sites like Kotaku have featured articles about NSFW things in the past, but have often kept them away from the front page, or ridden with 18+ warnings to prevent accidental clicking...

 

Which draws parallels with 4chan. In the end, it's profiling based on an illusion. An illusion of safety, and an illusion of filth. I hardly doubt anyone cares, but I honestly emplore you to rethink and reconsider your exact reasonings as to why such urls are banned. The internet really isn't as safe as you'd think.