Online message board 4chan sold to Japanese Web culture pioneer

New York

IF the Internet is the Wild West, you could call 4chan "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". Founded in 2003 by Christopher Poole, the anonymous message board 4chan has been home to a veritable smorgasbord of everything that the Web has to offer. With posts on the site lasting only a matter of days - or even hours - before they are deleted, 4chan has been described as the collective id of the Internet, home to hardcore pornography, hardcore cooking tips and everything in between.

Now Mr Poole is letting go of 4chan after more than a decade at its helm. On Monday, he announced that he had sold the message board to Hiroyuki Nishimura, a pioneer of Japanese Web culture and the founder and former owner of 2channel, an early anonymous online message board.