4chan’s ‘cesspool of the internet’ is down after apparently being hacked

4chan appears to be down following a major hack that reportedly exposed its source code. A user on a competing messaging board claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday night and claimed to have reopened the site’s /qa/ board. 4chan is, obviously, also notorious for trying to trick outsiders about things happening on the site, and its tagline has long included the phrase: “Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.” The image-posting board was a base for the Anonymous movement and later a hub for far-right extremism, as well as the model for similar boards like 8chan. There are several popular but unverified rumors claiming the 4chan leak includes the emails belonging to moderators, and that it could be the result of the forum running on long-unpatched software dating back to 2016. However, Jared Holt, a senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, points out that in terms of wilder rumors about .edu and .gov email addresses in the leaked lists, “the source for this claim was not legit…after spending the morning with what materials I could halfway assess as legit I am sad to report that this is a real snoozer.”