4chan sprays Google with "scientology" and a nasty insult

Close but missed a MAJOR point.. 4chan is where many different people post about different things! Hell check out the forum! The posts don't last but for a few hours or minutes, as the pages are not stored in history. It's constantly different.

As to the culture jamming, usually groups of hackers under some flag, do these 'raids'. It's a erroneous to say all of chan did it. Insurgents or /I/, a section of the forum did it.

When I read about the swastika in the news, after reading Jessie Jackson's comments about Obama, I knew it not chance that they rose on the same day, nuf' said.

I think you are obsessed with watching 4chan. When in fact 4chan is a site for kids, and google bombing is the most simple and beginner form of hacking and server wars.

This is just kids play and you write columns about it?

Kids need to experiment on the internet, learning how to destroy and rebuild the internet is part of learning computer science and many advanced high paying programming jobs.

Many kids go from spam and grief, to hacking, and then on to linux server administration jobs.

Writing a column about the Swastika only makes the kids pull more stunts, way to go!

Hypewagon: It's hard not to be interested in 4chan when they keep figuring out ways to get themselves in the news. As the recent articles in Time and WSJ note, they're one of the biggest hotbeds of online memes. It may be mostly rowdy young people, but that doesn't make what they do any less newsworthy, in my opinion. The younger, web-savvy demographics are the ones that, as you pointed out, will be in the Internet's driver seat in a few years. What they're doing has implications for everyone else.

4chan does not exist. Move along.

what is wrong with these people, shoving swastkas in little kids' faces. maybe they should be charged with a hate crime and those living in the US should be prosecuted. if that is their idea of fun, this might adjust their attitudes on the subject. after all, "free speech" only takes one so far these days...

I don't agree that it's a particularly "nasty" result.

Here's another article to provide some more context - http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article4173635.ece

No such thing as 4chan.

I don't see why this is a big idea. The internet is suppose to be a public forum, a virtual community if you will. Google's search engine is nothing more than a record of that community, and Google Trends could be likened to a Best Seller list. It's only purpose is to describe the activity of the larger community at a given time in history. To be angry at anyone for propelling something up the list on Google Trends makes about as much sense as saying Oprah Winfrey is causing trouble by promoting her book club. She is, in effect, influencing her audience to go out and purchase that book. An action that has propelled more than one novel up the NY TImes Best Seller List. It's just a record, quit crying about it. People have a right to be people, you can't control every action, and sometimes people are offensive, so what?

4chan did not do it, it was ebaumsworld.

Indeed! As we enjoy a more free communication, so too with schoolyard bullys, semi-literates and disruptive elements. In days gone past it took great effort to rouse a demonstration. Today it takes only a few phrases on a disruptive website, a few minutes of discussion, and a few dozen computers running dedicated software. People dedicated to disrupting normal communication have found their comfort zone on the internet.

ugh, the swastika is actually a symbol of piece to.

I'm just assuming your trolling actually, the whole comment makes no sense.

How exactly is this news? You live a very sad life if you sit on 4chan all day just to write ignorant and ill-informed article stubs about things that happen every day.

Get a life. You're not insightful or edgy because you just discovered a website that's been around for 4 years.

Wow, your writing about a website that no one really cares about when there are more interesting topics at bay. You sir need to turn off your computer go outside and then take a nice breath of fresh air, then realiese its not fresh and do something about world pollution.

Google is a big boy now it can defend itself, also if google didn't change it sure than means they don't like the majority of people "CARE".

INTERNET IS SERIOUS BUSINESS

who gives a s**t*?
This is the internet, not real life.

For the lulz, boys. For the lulz.

Once again some newspaper is watching 4chan.
4chan is just a picture board where ANYTHING can be posted. Everyone seems to have it in their heads that 4chan is this "internet hate machine" when really it is just a bunch of teenagers having fun. Let them have their fun, they'll soon grow out of it.
All this news on 4chan is getting old. So give it a rest.

4chan is a lie

Scientology may indeed be a cult, but these anonymous mask-wearing website-hacking "kids" (and I use that term loosely - many of these 4chan troublemakers are middle aged and living at home) are far more dangerous. Committing vandalism and hate crimes are NOT just "kids' play"!

The Habbo Hotel raid was a tribute to a very similar raid that happened a few years back.

Searching for a swastika on Google is now "vandalism" and "hate crimes" - what? Harly like spraying it on the wall of a synagogue, now is it? Reminds me more of the musical The Producers.

David Sarno, you are very new to the internet and you don't really understand it. I say get another job or write about something else.

$cientology is a cult

For everyone that has called these acts vandalism, remember that they are only as permanent as people's memories. This is not a wall or someone else's property that they then have to repair. It removes itself.

For everyone complaining about their children being exposed to "hate", you may consider actively participating in their lives and education. Seeing a swastika means nothing to child that doesn't understand it, and evokes nothing if you take the mystique away from it. Don't raise your children to have their feeling prayed upon by strangers.

This is article reeks of conspiracy theory and little substance.. Big deal if "Scientology is a cult" got on the list. It's not as if it's a lie. Meanwhile, by adding ayour comment about 'the case of the swastika' story ( which seems to have been the work of one prankster and not intentional), you make it look like Chan4 is some evil group basing religions. How much did the Church of Scientology pay you to write this story? I ask because it's fiction, just like the fiction they put in that Pinellas County, FL injunction request against the nongroup they called Anonymous, an injunction request the judge wisely threw out.

The prankster who got many others to post the code without them knowing it would put the word 'swastika' on the google trends list did what I would call a terrible thing because the intention was to hurt the feeliing of Jews and others who know what the symbol really means. Comparing that to a bunch of people doing a search for 'scientolgy is a cult' to get the word out before another worldwide protest was to commense it what I would call smart marketing at the expense of a weak google system. These kids should be acknowledged for being smart enough to get a truthful message out about a fraudulent organization' at Googl's expense. The prankster issue is a separate, individual unrelated matter to this. Shame on you and the LA Times.

Look up Lorne Dawon's Oxford University Press book , 1998, "Comprehending Cults." In it Dawson puts Scientology, the Moonies and Hare Krishnas into the "established cult" category, see page 31. Read some Robert Jay Lifton on what Lifton listed as what constitutes a totalistic group. Read what the top scholars say about where Scientology fits in. Scientology is authoritarian, secretive, it still publicly won't even admit the Xenu holocaust story, yet the L. Ron Hubbard lecture has leaked to YouTube and anyone can listen to Hubbard detail the Xenu holocaust story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuHNcAhtZEY&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KOspFSdO-k&feature=related

Anyone knows that these "popular" searches are BOGUS... skewed by special interests... a PR SCAM by googold to get you to view those search results pages that have goopoo ads... it where goodung makes it's $.

Google references it's own ads in it's search results which any web master will tell you is BOGUS... because the ads change moment to moment. A "Bug" droolgle has acknowledged but in all it's wisdom hasn't (been able to) fixed (because they make more $ with it broke).

Basic Scientology tech is valid but to keep people paying the dough they have invented "levels" to keep the cash coming in... check out alternative groups for same/similar tech without the jack-boots.

Warning: Don't ever give them your mailing address or phone number, you'll never get rid of 'em.

http://img.4chan.org/b/imgboard.html

Always looking for more members.

Come join the Randomness LOL.

The comments make it very clear that the members of 4chan need to get a life, as well as learn to spell and write cogently.

I am a Scientologist.
Probably Scientologists should organize and do a counter-campaign... or maybe not... it would be just a waste of time!
Anyway ithere is an official site where one can find data on Scientology... scientology.org.

Even better go to the library and read books like "Fondaments of Thought" of "What is Scientology" . If you want to know what Scientology is about read Scientology books!

The use of the swastika is not an attempt to invoke nazi sympathies, but rather a symbol chosen that is considered highly taboo and is used for its shock value. Like goatse before it, eventually when the swastika stops getting a reaction from people, a new shock meme will establish itself which will be considered equally if not more offensive than the last until it too becomes boring.

Hey David Sarno,
"ne'er-do-well" means shiftless and irresponsible. it is not a synonym for "villain".

Savid:

Is that your real name? Amazing!

Thanks for the heads up on ne'er-do-well. You're right. And I've been using that one wrong for a while now, so good thing you alerted me.

I am a Scientologist. I personally find the use of a popular subject (eg Scientology) in a ridiculing or denigrating manner to fulfill one's own personal whims and sense of "accomplishment" to be a sad statement of the persons own integrity and intelligence. Whether it be Scientology yesterday, a Mormon (any other religion for that matter) or as the New Yorker did with Mr. Obama on their cover. Ironically, the "stated" aim of individuals to somehow impede or otherwise "harm" Scientology or Scientologist with the lies and misinformation so rampantly spread, actually has been proven to promote and expand Scientology. Every day that someone publishes something derogatory - the cycle of curious individuals continues where they actually fact check and research themselves and find out what Scientology is about and then themselves get interested in what really is the scoop, and like Anonymous, the perpetrators become become forgotten and Scientology stronger. I am really even spending this time typing because of the issue with Obama today, as a Scientologist this is all very boring and hardly interesting.

DKaye, the majority of people criticizing Scientology via the internet have valid reasons for doing it. I used to be a long time scientologist like you but I took the blinders off and started reading the information the church somehow convinced me I should not read. It was only then that I began to think for myself and evaluate the information. It is the truth which sets things free. You are not free and I feel very sorry for you and other scientologists. That is why I am now on the internet exposing the truth about scientology. I am not alone in this endeavor. Thousand and thousands have left the cult and have found the internet to be the liberty tree, as arnie lerma of lermanet.com like to call it.

It's not 4chan that the LA Times are insterested in, it's Scientology. In the name of diversity, the LA Times will try to defend what is little more than a pyramid scheme dressed up as a "religion", and expect to be portrayed as the good guys as a result.

Makes me wonder what favours are being exchanged behind the scenes.

Internet, lol.

If an act of real-world vandalism was perpetrated and it was discovered that the perpetrators resided in Los Angeles and got together to plan the act in Los Angeles and even got together in Los Angeles afterwards to celebrate victory -- would it be a journalistically defensible action to refer to "the people of Los Angeles" as the entity that perpetrated the vandalism?

No? Then it's rather a shame that you referred throughout your post to what "4chan users" were doing, as if any self-selected subset of its users could somehow be expected to be representative.

Aw come on. We all do it. You do it. I do it. Ceilingcat knows all about how we all do it. Boys just wanna have fun, and some of us older hackers, crackers, and smackers need play time as well.

I mean sweet baby Jesus, nobody died -- probably because none of us signed up for Scientology's "Narconon" scam.

LOL at NarCONon scam thx David^2, S'trooth!

Seriously, don't EVER let anybody go to a Narconon, they fail at independently verifiable studies for effectiveness and their withdrawal program (5 hours sauna a day and abnormally high doses of Niacin)could cause liver damage.

Here is good info on the dangers of Scientology/Narconon for anyone interested:

www.narconon-exposed.org

I doubt Google is too upset over the issue. It simply shows them ways they need to improve their software. They deal with these kinds of things all the time.

4chan represents a collection of opinions and different "pranks" as you call them, however, in their defense - its showed google up, and as google is the primary search engine and one of the most important companies in the world, it need to more on the game. This has happened several times in a row - wake up google.

Upside down text, the scientology is a cult, and some others were originated at 4chan, note the past tense "were", 4chan is a constantly moving forum

First of all 4chan is community, i would say not even a community but a collective.
it is not a one man show, it is not a collective of like minded people.
all types of people are on that site. Male, Female, Geeks, Supids, Bad, Good, Angry, Sad, Funny, Witty... you get everything.

All enjoying the pleasure of posting anonymously, getting answers to their questions, putting their viewpoints and like anyother community creating occasional funny moments.
Unlike your view Mr.Sarno they do not like the media attention, they never did. they are anonymous.

You may have screen shots for that whole thread, you may have seen that more people were against the idea of 'scientology is a cult' search and wanted to do alternate searches.

i don't understand what was the big deal which made you right this article.

you are writing about habbo hotel, do you know why these raids are done?
scientology is really a cult, why don't you do a report on them?

Swastikas is no joke and these people need to quick with it and black men in Armani suits. If only you used your hacking man power to put Darfur on the top of the google trends instead of some miniscule religion. Selfish twits, you'd rather get famous of the hits to your anti-scilon websites, cause that brings traffic and big adsense account paychecks, but not worthy issues. All you want is website traffice money, cause that is how you get to stay home all day and waste your time hacking what brings you the income.

- To be fair, the Habbo Hotel raids were provoked by a few of the mods being racist in the first place, wasn't it? I wasn't part of it, but I know that there was an actual reason for the original raid which, if I'm not mistaken, the recent one is an anniversary of.

- Look, if a cult (or religion, if you prefer) does things which is outside the law, then it needs to be stopped. Just because Scientology have more money than...say, the Branch Davidians, or the People's Temple, does not make it any less dangerous (in fact, it makes them more so). Nor do the presence of celebrities make it a particularly convincing argument. And if Project Chanology is going to lead the way in exposing what the media (and respective governments) have been too corrupt and scared of Scientology's influence to admit, then I'm all for it.

"Gnomes" (often referred to as "Underpants Gnomes") is the 30th episode of Comedy Central's animated series South Park. It was originally broadcast on December 16, 1998.

The Underpants Gnomes have a three-phase business plan, consisting of:
1. Collect underpants
2. ?
3. Profit

None of the gnomes actually know what the second phase is, and all of them assume that someone else within the organization does.

Yet another reporter being paid by Scientology to make false accusations against a simple internet site.

Whoever wrote this article has has their facts wrong. This prank and many others are started by ebaumsworld.com and lolcats.com. 4chan has been down for over 2 years.

4chan is the meme king? maybe they can create some meme's about obama before he buys his way into office...

Not your personal army, Toto.