Today, the site's operations are almost entirely opaque. Unlike Mr Poole, Mr Nishimura has only rarely answered questions about 4chan. Its ownership is hidden behind a corporate veil, managed by anonymous moderators bound to silence with nondisclosure agreements. (Mr Nishimura, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times and people familiar with the situation, bought 4chan with funding from three Japanese partners for an undisclosed sum.) In October, a report on the Buffalo massacre by the New York State attorney general singled out 4chan, noting that the site "operates outside of the efforts by other online platforms to rein in hate speech and graphic content that contributes to the cycle of white supremacist violence." In a manifesto posted to 4chan, the gunman wrote that he had been radicalized by white supremacist conspiracy theories he had first encountered there. He said his attack was inspired by a video clip on 4chan of the 2019 massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand.
While other sites moved quickly to make it harder to post such content, 4chan did almost nothing, the attorney general's report said. Mr Nishimura doesn't seem to see an issue with that.