How a major toy company kept 4chan online

Enlarge (credit: Jacqui VanLiew; Getty Images)

Toxic image board 4chan has managed to stay online for the past seven years—amid boycotts and advertiser flight, after being implicated in several mass shootings, even as it was identified as a source of the conspiracy theories that inspired the January 6 insurrection—thanks, in part, to a $2.4 million investment from a major Japanese toy company.

A partnership agreement, obtained exclusively by WIRED, shows not only how current site owner Hiroyuki Nishimura acquired the far-right message board but also how Japanese industry helped finance the deal.