Christopher Poole is an American internet
entrepreneur from New York City, noted for
founding the websites 4chan and Canvas.
He originally started 4chan pseudonymously,
under the screen name moot.
Impact and activity
In 2008, Leopoldo Godoy of Brazilian TV Globo
called Poole's 4chan "the ground zero of Western
web culture."
In April 2009, Poole was voted the world's
most influential person of 2008 by an open
Internet poll conducted by Time magazine.
The results were questioned even before the
poll completed, as automated voting programs
and manual ballot stuffing were used to influence
the vote.
4chan's interference with the vote seemed
increasingly likely, when it was found that
reading the first letter of the first 21 candidates
in the poll spelled out a phrase containing
two 4chan memes: "mARBLECAKE.
ALSO, THE GAME."
On September 12, 2009, Poole gave a talk on
why 4chan has a reputation as a "Meme Factory"
at the Paraflows Symposium in Vienna, Austria,
which was part of the Paraflows 09 festival,
themed Urban Hacking.
In this talk, Poole mainly attributed this
to the anonymous system, and to the lack of
data retention on the site.
On February 10, 2010, Poole spoke at the TED2010
conference in Long Beach, California.
He spoke about the increasing prevalence of
persistent user identities and the sharing
of personal information on sites like Facebook
and Twitter and he also spoke about the value
of anonymous posting on sites like 4chan.
Fred Leal of the Brazilian newspaper O Estado
de S. Paulo said his inclusion in the conference
"indicates that something extraordinary is
happening... [4chan] challenges every Internet
convention: it is, alone, the antithesis of
Google, social networking sites, and blogs."
In 2010, Poole was reported to have raised
$625,000 to create a new online enterprise,
Canvas.
The website opened on January 31, 2011, and
features digitally modified images uploaded
by users who are required to self-identify
using Facebook Connect.
In April 2010, Poole gave evidence in the
trial United States of America v. David Kernell
as a government witness.
As a witness, Poole explained the terminology
used on 4chan to the prosecutor, ranging from
"OP" to "lurker."
He also explained to the court the nature
of the data given to the FBI as part of the
search warrant, including how users can be
uniquely identified from site audit logs.
In a 2010 interview, Poole discussed his belief
in the value of multiple identities, including
anonymity, in contrast to the merge of online
and real-world identities occurring on Facebook
and many other social networking sites.
In November 2012, Poole sent a cease and desist
letter to Moot.It, an internet startup.
In January 2014, Poole announced that Canvas,
and its DrawQuest feature, would be going
out of business.
Identity
Christopher Poole's actual name was revealed
on July 9, 2008, in The Wall Street Journal.
The same day, Lev Grossman of Time published
an interview describing Poole's influence
as a non-visible administrator as "one of
the most [significant]" on the evolution of
content collaboration.
Although Grossman's article began with the
confession that "I don't even know his real
name," he claimed to identify moot as Christopher
Poole.
Later, on July 10, Grossman admitted that
there was an outside chance that Christopher
Poole was not moot's real name, rather an
obscure reference to a 4chan inside joke.
The Washington Post concurred that "Christopher
Poole" could be "all a big hoax, a 'gotcha.'
It would be just what you'd expect from the
creator of 4chan."
In March 2009, Time backpedaled somewhat on
the issue by placing the moot persona on the
2009 Time 100 finalists list.
Prior to the Wall Street Journal and Time
interviews, moot deliberately kept his real
identity separate from 4chan.
He told Grossman, "my personal private life
is very separate from my Internet life ...
There's a firewall in between."
As moot, he has spoken at conferences at Yale
University and Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
A 2008 article in The Observer had him down
as "the most influential web entrepreneur
you've never heard of," though he has since
been described in more limited terms such
as "benefactor."
In February 2009, The Washington Post reported
that Poole had attended Virginia Commonwealth
University for a few semesters before dropping
out.
It reported that Poole was living with his
mother while looking for a way to make money
from owning 4chan.
References
