page_title: 4chan
section_title: Anonymous and anti-Scientology activism
hierarchical_section_title: 4chan / Internet culture / Anonymous and anti-Scientology activism
caption_attribution_description: Olympus digital camera (Project Chanology protest in Sydney, Australia)COS Raid @ Sydney
context_page_description: 4chan is an anonymous English-language imageboard website. Launched by Christopher "moot" Poole in October 2003, 4chan hosts boards dedicated to a wide variety of topics, from anime and manga to video games, music, literature, fitness, politics, and sports, among others. Registration is not possible, and the site's users generally post anonymously; threads receiving recent replies are "bumped" to the top of their respective board and old threads are automatically deleted as new ones are created. As of June 2020, 4chan receives more than 22 million unique monthly visitors, with approximately 900,000 posts made daily.
context_section_description: 4chan has been labeled as the starting point of the Anonymous meme by The Baltimore City Paper, due to the norm of posts signed with the "Anonymous" moniker. The National Post's David George-Cosh said it has been "widely reported" that Anonymous is associated with 4chan and 711chan, as well as numerous Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels.
  Through its association with Anonymous, 4chan has become associated with Project Chanology, a worldwide protest against the Church of Scientology held by members of Anonymous. On January 15, 2008, a 4chan user posted to /b/, suggesting participants "do something big" against the Church of Scientology's website. This message resulted in the Church receiving threatening phone calls. It quickly grew into a large real-world protest. Unlike previous Anonymous attacks, this action was characterized by 4chan memes including rickrolls and Guy Fawkes masks. The raid drew criticism from some 4chan users who felt it would bring the site undesirable attention.
caption: Protests against Scientology
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