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It’s cloudy

2channel’s massive anonymous message Board has been playing an important role on the Japanese web for 15 years (mostly on the dark side). Riddled with gossip and rumors, the site has always kept its ownership vague to avoid legal conflicts, but lately the longtime backer of the background seems to be trying to shake things up – and he’s an American.

2channel (2ch) is Japan’s largest ad service, founded in 1999 by Hiroyuki Nishimura. There are boards for every conceivable object. Because the site allows users to post anonymously, it has become very popular as a place to vent without the usual pressure of Japan’s strict social mores. The concept has even been exported to other countries, such as with 4chan in the United States.

New development began after 2channel recovered from a glitch on February 19. Under the name “Jim” was created only for the admin thread with the beginning of the message: “I protected 2ch servers”.

The post stated that “previous management” had failed to make enough money to run servers, that its name had been maligned, and ended with the hope that “proper management” could make the site sustainable again.

So who is this “Jim”? He is Jim Watkins, an American who runs 2channel servers in San Francisco, on his web server hosting company N. T. Technology. Indeed, one of the reasons why it is so difficult to file a lawsuit or legal action against 2channel is that its servers are located outside Japan.

Indeed, the domain name 2ch.net, which Nishimura claimed to have given to Singapore-based Packet Monster Inc. in 2009, was transferred in 2012 to Race Queen Inc., a Philippine it company whose contact name is Jim Watkins. Thus, both 2channel servers and its domain name are under Watkins ‘ control. The top page of 2channel now lists the race Queen’s contact information.

So who is” previous leadership ” Watkins declared incapable? Some suspect Watkins of a coup against Nishimura. But this is just speculation. Around the time the site was down, Nishimura tweeted in Japanese, ” Things are quietly ending; time has passed like this .” Assuming this tweet was even related to the takeover, it was Nishimura’s only public action.

There is another theory that Watkins is referring to one or more individuals at the operator level. Last year, the site suffered a massive privacy leak of its paid users. The leak included credit card security codes that should not be kept on the seller’s side. This incident affected the revenues of 2channel, which was used to pay for N. T. Technology. Watkins can position himself as the lead to rectify the situation.

No one wants to claim ownership of 2channel and take responsibility for lawsuits and tax issues, but for now, Watkins implies that he has taken over the running of the site, whether that means he is simply Nishimura’s henchmen or aspiring to be the new Emperor.

One big debate earlier this month was about the policy of reusing comments by third parties. Matome (resume) sites select quality comments from 2channel streams for reissue and ad revenue, with the top sites reportedly receiving 100 million monthly page views. These sites siphon users from 2channel themselves, affecting the number of posts made there.

Many Board users have told Watkins that they want tensai kinshi, which means explicitly banning third parties from reusing their comments. Watkins approved this, and the policies of many popular councils were changed to reflect this from March 2.

Summary of sites panicked. Since their content was taken entirely from 2channel boards, some have been forced to close, or stop updating, accept comments from Twitter instead, and so on. Some have directed their readers to other 2channel-style clone sites that do not have such restrictions, such as Open-2channel. One of Japan’s largest websites, FC2, has opened boards with the same name as those affected on channel 2 in an attempt to lure users.

However, it turned out that Watkins misunderstood tensai kinshi’s phrase, to which he agreed. He just wanted to add “all rights reserved” as a preemptive warning, but got “tensai kinshi” when he tried to translate the phrase using Google Translate and made it an option for users to vote. After he realized his mistake, Watkins backed off all changes on March 5, and resume sites resumed as usual.

This incident proves how difficult it will be to manage such a massive forum without knowing the language. If Watkins did take over the site, he should find Japanese-speaking employees. And if Nishimura actually ordered him to step into a minefield simply because no one else wants him to be considered honcho in the eyes of the authorities, the confusion will continue.

Akky Akimoto writes for Asiajin.com, an English / Spanish blog on the Japan website. His @akky Twitter account is followed by 122,000 users.

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