I think similarly. And 4chan wasn’t the only website affected, it happened to reddit and to pretty much all social networks. It was very drastic, like somebody flipped a switch on the internet that year. You could tell astroturfing was way more intense than usual.
I’m not sure if I got used to it, but it feels a little bit more mellow nowadays, with flare-ups in key political moments, but 2016 was a 365 day effort.
I think similarly. And 4chan wasn’t the only website affected, it happened to reddit and to pretty much all social networks. It was very drastic, like somebody flipped a switch on the internet that year. You could tell astroturfing was way more intense than usual.
I’m not sure if I got used to it, but it feels a little bit more mellow nowadays, with flare-ups in key political moments, but 2016 was a 365 day effort.
It happened here too last US election. I had no idea what was real, and then suddenly - poof - the vocal accounts all quieted down.