If you have ever wondered how sites like 4Chan manifest themselves across the net - anonymous, swarming, uncensored picture messaging forums - read on. This is fascinating.
Yesterday in a few places in the news, a story emerged that a little old lady, whilst walking down the street, lured a friendly cat towards a wheelie bin and when nobody was looking - THREW THE CAT IN THE BIN. Sadly for her, but happily for the cat, she was caught on CCTV.
Even more sadly for her, the video of the CCTV footage made it on to the web. And then on to the site described by Boing Boing as 'the best and worst of the internet' - 4Chan. I will let Boing Boing describe the rest of what happened. Have a read of their full post. And the video of cat bin lady is below.
Between Monday and Tuesday this week - "4Chan happened"
"Often dismissed as little more than a gang of anonymous bullies, there is some truth to the notion that the site is simultaneously the best and worst of the internet, and that when they put their collective minds together, there is no stopping them..."Almost immediately after the video started making the internet rounds yesterday, the 4chan legion set out to find this woman and destroy her life. Within a few hours she was identified as Mary Bale, 50, of Coventry (England).
"But there's more: they also found out where she worked. They posted the phone number and name of her boss. They found out where she lived, and posted a Google map of that address. They found her Facebook profile.
"And because of what some suggested should be done with this info, the local police stepped in and helped her hide. Probably not a bad idea."
The conclusions: you can find out anything about anyone on the net Foursquare / Places / Pleaserobme.com or not. Swarms are powerful. Cats are sacred. And 4chan remains a force to be reckoned with.
Here's the video:

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