Budgetary concerns and the desire not to destroy other planets is why the White House shot down plans to construct a Death Star, after more than 34,000 people, mostly from 4chan, signed a petition to build one.

No, really: budgetary concerns and the desire not to destroy other planets.

Those were some of the reasons the White House cited in its response on Friday afternoon, written by Paul Shawcross, chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

You may remember a few weeks ago when a little petition on the White House's We the People site was gaining popularity on 4chan. Within days, it had already reached the 25,000-signature threshold that warrants the White House to respond, which they did in a post titled “This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For.”

But once you start reading the response, you'll realize it was exactly the answer we were looking for:

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.

• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.

• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

That type of research deserves a round of applause. But interestingly, the post goes on to say that even if we don't have a star that can destroy planets or house Darth Vader, we have something similar: the International Space Station. Shawcross goes on to discuss the work being done in space right now by the United States and its partners that, in his mind, outweighs having a massive Death Star. And he concludes by asking people to consider a career in math, science, engineering, or a technology-related field.

If you do, "the Force will be with us! Remember, the Death Star's power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force,” he wrote.

Photo via Michael Wifall/Flickr

If you happen to see rapper and social media sweetheart Lil B performing live on primetime TV this year with some Vans sneakers on, you can probably thank 4chan for that.

The site's random imageboard, /b/, a place where dick pics and violent photos are shared freely under the guise of anonymity, is asking people to once again game a public vote for the laughs. This time it's to have the 23-year-old rapper, also known as the BasedGod, perform at the 55th annual Grammy Awards Feb. 10.

The following instructions were posted on /b/ as part of Operation #BasedGrammys:

1. Go to facebook/TheGrammys/app_207367796002477
2. Use all ten of your votes for Lil B
3. Watch as Lil B's freestyles for 45 minutes, raps about love, humanity, and acceptance. People will start having sex everywhere as money becomes irrelevant, the State dissolves, and Lil B ushers in the Age of Man. 

Lil B is a social media maven who has amassed more 608,000 Twitter followers and 80 million YouTube views in less than five years. Unlike many rappers concerned with a tough-guy role, Lil B has been praised by fans and critics "for his gender-defying self-proclamations that he's [a] 'pretty b****' and a 'princess' while producing songs inspired by untraditional hip-hop topics like Miley Cyrus and Ellen DeGeneres," CNN reported. 

In June 2011 Lil B released the album I'm Gay (I'm Happy) to positive reviews. Lil B also received death threats because of the title, aimed at raising LGBT awareness.

"It was something that was going through my mind for a while," Lil B told CNN in May 2011. "I feel like I'm a man of the people: meeting people, respecting people and accepting people."

Operation #BasedGrammys is just the latest in a string of high-profile voting schemes 4chan has been involved with over the past three months.

In November, Time magazine's Person of the Year poll was gamed to have North Korean leader Kim Jong-un take the top spot. Kim netted 5.9 million votes thanks to a Java script created by Internet Relay Chat (IRC) user _js5. That same script also helped _js5 and a group of IRC users manipulate the public poll to spell “KJUGASCHAMBERS” using the first letter of each candidate's name. Kim ultimately lost the cover to President Barack Obama, but was crowned the people's choice winner.

On Dec. 11, 4chan's sports community, /sp/, launched Operation White Man Can Jump—a reference to the 1992 film about street-ball hustlers Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes. The goal was to encourage the community to vote for lighter-skinned players as starters in the 2013 NBA All-Star Game. The suggested players include Lakers point guard Steve Nash, Nets forward Kris Humphries, and Timberwolves forward Kevin Love.

These two pranks were eclipsed by one of the most sinister on the site to date. The hoax #cutforbieber was launched on Jan. 7 to encourage users to tweet photos of bloodied arms in response to a leaked picture of Justin Bieber smoking marijuana. The mission: "see if we can get some little girls to cut themselves."

Once the scheme got rolling, the users who started the original /b/ thread removed it from the site in an attempt to hide their tracks and trick media organizations into believing the Twitter hashtag appeared organically. #cutforbieber went worldwide shortly after the 4chan thread was deleted. The result was gruesome. Photos of bloodied arms, a fake Facebook memorial page for a fan, and fake tweets from Bieber himself flooded Twitter, Buzzfeed reported.

#cutforbieber became the most popular hashtag on Twitter some time around 2:30pm ET on Jan. 7.

As was the case with the NBA All-Star prank, the success of the Lil B operation is unclear. Voting on Facebook closes Thursday at 3pm ET. 

"real proud of you guys, /b/," one anonymous user commented. "never knew you guys were so #based, stay positive."

UPDATE: Twitter tipsters are reporting that Lil B has been removed from the Grammys poll. At last count, he was in second place in his region.

Photo via Lil B; remix by Fernando Alfonso III

The NBA All Star votes are in and 4chan's Operation White Man Can Jump has failed.

The operation was launched on Dec. 1, and urged the community to vote only lighter-skinned players as starters in the 2013 NBA All-Star Game. The suggested players included Lakers point guard Steve Nash, Nets forward Kris Humphries, and Timberwolves forward Kevin Love.

“Lets bring America back to the 60s and vote for an all white NBA all star game,” stated the original 4chan thread, posted to the site’s sports section, /sp/. “Keep votes the same as this, this way we ensure maximum votes. Also some guys are popular to begin with so that will help. The time is now.”

But the results are due to be announced at 7:30pm ET Thursday, and 4chan’s players of choice are nowhere to be seen at the top of the polls.
 
Based on the most recent vote totals released by the NBA, New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony, Los Angeles Lakers forward Kobe Bryant, and Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant—all African-Americans—are among the players projected as starters for this year's game on Feb. 17.

Unlike in most 4chan pranks, perpetrators of Operation White Man Can Jump—a reference to the 1992 film about street ball hustlers Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes—did not use scripts to manipulate polling. Instead, they just planned to create fake accounts on the NBA’s polling site to cast repeated votes.

All votes this year were cast online or through text message. Votes from ordinary fans and basketball professionals were given equal weight, an NBA representative told the Daily Dot. The NBA also confirmed that it didn’t notice any voting discrepancies in the All-Star poll, which makes a surprise victory for 4chan’s “Cream Team” unlikely.

Operation White Man Can Jump is the second 4chan caper to be foiled Thursday. An effort by the imageboard’s notorious “random: forum, /b/, to have rapper and social media sweetheart Lil B perform at the 55th annual Grammy Awards was foiled when Lil B was removed from the poll Thursday. At last count, he was in second place in his voting region.

In November, Time magazine's Person of the Year poll was gamed to have North Korean leader Kim Jong-un take the top spot. Kim netted 5.9 million votes thanks to a Java script created by Internet Relay Chat (IRC) user _js5. That same script also helped _js5 and a group of IRC users manipulate the public poll to spell “KJUGASCHAMBERS” using the first letter of each candidate's name. Kim ultimately lost the cover to President Barack Obama, but was crowned the people's choice winner.

These three pranks were eclipsed by one of the most sinister on the site to date. The hoax #cutforbieber was launched on Jan. 7 to encourage young Justin Bieber fans to tweet photos of their bloodied arms in response to a leaked picture of Bieber smoking marijuana. The mission: "see if we can get some little girls to cut themselves."

Photo via NBA/Facebook

An Oklahoma man was arrested by the FBI Monday afternoon, about five hours after threatening to attack the town of Casper, Wyo., in a post on 4chan.

The post Glenn Allen Kirkham, 34, made on the site’s random image forum, /b/, announced his plans to use two pistols, knives, and some carpentry tools to attack Casper and "give my life for your freedom."

Kirkham was arrested Monday after the Natrona County Sheriff's Office and the FBI received numerous calls, Oklahoma's KOCO reported. The calls also forced police to shut down schools across the county.

Kirkham is officially charged with "making a threatening post on an Internet-based bulletin board site," Tulsa, Okla.-based NBC affiliate KJRH reported.

In one anonymous post made after the arrest, the 4chan community claimed Kirkham was just trolling the authorities and not actually serious in his intent.

"So should we bail Glenn Allen Kirkham out?" the post read. "He did after all troll plenty on here into believing it enough to sit around listening to the Casper police scanner & apparently a few of you white-knighted on him."

The campaign to bail Kirkham out received few responses, and the post has since expired.

When confronted by the FBI at his apartment,  Kirkham claimed his 4chan post was a "work of artistic falsehood," and pointed to a 4chan disclaimer that anyone would be a “fool” to believe postings on the site, The Casper Star-Tribune reported.

In an alleged follow-up post, Kirkham claimed the threat was supposed to be a sort of sick joke.

"I never said anything about a school or killing people…I live about 18 hours away from Wyoming, so even if I did get backtraced and V&, they would know that I had no way to carry out any threats that far away in 1-2 hours,” Kirkham wrote, according to the Star-Tribune.

Kirkham is being held in Grady County Jail.

While voting-related pranks have kept 4chan busy the past three months, it has not lost its reputation as a vessel for disseminating violent threats. In September a Washington State high school was closed after an anonymous user who promised to take his fathers submachine gun to Skyline High School in Sammamish and “open fire on the people in the commons until I am taken down by our schools police officer, or until I run out of mags.”

A Reddit user posted a screengrab of the 4chan post to the r/WTF forum, where users questioned its authenticity because of a missing timestamp.

About a month later, 4chan's /b/ community turned its wrath on aspiring director Michael Gallagher after it was revealed that the imageboard was the inspiration for the villain in his new horror movie.

Screengrab via KOCO

A couple of muscle-car maniacs are under investigation by California police and 4chan's auto community after stopping traffic on a busy highway to do some donuts.

The antics on California's Interstate 880 were caught on tape by a stopped motorist Saturday afternoon. The short video shows about four different cars, including a Mustang and Nissan 240sx, driving in circles while a handful of people look on.

The highway shenanigans inspired 4chan's auto forum, /o/, to become "Automotive White Knights" in search of the driver's identities. So far the community seems to have narrowed down the owner of a Nissan Silvia thanks to its bright rims, purple coloring, and stickering.

"[H]onestly, if I was stuck in that jam because of them, I would have driven my old crown vic directly into the center of their bullshit at full speed," one anonymous 4chan user wrote. "[N]obody there would testify against me except the boy racers on trial, I have a spare car, and god willing i'd get out with minor injuries. but alas, i live on the east coast, and don't have to deal with this kind of retardation."

The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is currently investigating the incident and studying the video for license plate numbers, the Oakland Tribunereported.

"It was like something out of a video game," CHP spokeswoman Diana McDermott told the Tribune. "It is extremely reckless driving. In no way are our freeway systems designed for this."

Photo via 4chan

Warning: This story contains NSFW text and images.

The pranksters over at 4chan are doctoring photos of nude and seemingly underage girls to help make the hashtag #boobs4bieber a Twitter trending topic.

The anarchist Web forum started the hashtag, which has been mentioned on Twitter 423 times in the past three hours, thanks to two different posts on 4chan's random image board, /b/, a forum known for its pornographic and violent images.

The latest post on /b/ features more than five poorly doctored images of nude women with #boobs4bieber written on them. 4chan users have asked the community to tweet these photos in order to convince real women to strip down for the pop star. 

The Justin Bieber–related prank is the second to sprout up from 4chan this month. The first operation, on Jan. 7, attempted to get #cut4bieber trending on Twitter to “see if we can get some little girls to cut themselves” in response to a leaked photo of Bieber smoking marijuana.

Yet while 4chan was successful in getting #cut4bieber trending—it was also picked up on Fox News, the Daily Mail, and Wired—so far #boobs4bieber is falling short of expectations.

"[T]he operation is failing, we need more anons on fake twitter accounts to post," one anonymous user commented."[A]ll your shooped pics haven't been posted yet as far as I can see, let's get to it. ps should've gone with boobs for 1 direction." 

Other 4chan users criticized the direction of the prank.

"This is gonna suck so much," wrote one anonymous user. "Well, if your f****ts insist on doing it, at least use some other celebrity for fucks sake. We've already had #BaldForBieber and #CutForBieber. Do you n****rs lack the vision to see how this will fail? Also, no lulz. Only underage boobs."

At least one Twitter user, John Mallamas (@JinSaotome), has caught on to 4chan's prank and has been tweeting for people to ignore the hashtag.

" Do NOT look for or click on the hashtagged trend 'boobs4bieber,'" Mallamas tweeted. "You'll end up with illegal pics on your harddrive."

As a result, Mallamas has had his contact information posted on Encyclopedia Dramatica, the popular Wikipedia-style site chronicling the seedy underbelly of online culture and events. Doxing like this is a typical response for anyone who writes about, or criticizes, the community.

The last post on the thread:

And on Twitter:

Photo by ElHormiguero/Flickr

The saga of Chris Dorner, a former LAPD officer turned murderer and fugitive, has been compared to video games like Call of Duty.

Now one 4chan user has turned the comparison into a reality.

The free Doom–inspired game"Chris Dorner Last Stand" allows users to play as Dorner as he is holed up in a cabin in the woods.

While the song "N***a N***a N***a" by Gangsta Rap plays in the background, you must protect the cabin from police officers trying to get in. At one point in the game a photo of actor Charlie Sheen appears on a wall to lend some advice to the fugitive.

"Christopher Dorner, this is Charlie Sheen. You mention me in your manifesto so thank you for your kind words," Sheen says. "Let's figure out together how to end this thing. Call me. I look forward to talking to you."

As the game progresses, more and more cops swarm the cabin before it is set on fire somehow. Near the very end of the video demo, a person resembling the Terminator appears outside the cabin and kills Dorner. 

The game and YouTube video were created by Tenentr00Anderson. The video has collected 104,000 views in the past 24 hours.

"PS: Yes, you can win this game. The boss is hard, takes around 100 shots to kill, but you can if you have a good enough strategy," Tenentr00Anderson wrote in the video description. "4chan can make better games in 10 hours than EA can make in a year."

The game is based off the events that transpired Tuesday in a cabin near Big Bear Lake, Calif., where police eventually traced and exchanged gunfire with the fugitive ex-cop. One officer was killed and one was wounded. The cabin caught fire, and Dorner never emerged.

Dorner had been on the run from police since Feb. 3 after he killed four people, including one police officer.

The game has been a hit on Reddit, where it has collected more than 200 comments. 

"I've been playing this all night. After you beat the first level, it goes on to the rest of the levels in FreeDoom, keeping the skins and modifications," w00tmang commented. "The game quickly became about how the LAPD enslaved humanity with the help of aliens, and Dorner is the only hope humanity has in defeating the evil LAPD."

Adolf Hitler has been called a lot of things—a monster, possessed, and insane.

Now the mass murderer is being called the "smartest person in history," thanks to 4chan.

The dictator has topped a public poll on The Top Tens which has asked people to vote on the smartest people in history. Hitler edged out the likes of Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Isaac Newton thanks to a post on Reddit's r/4chan forum linking to the poll.

The Top Tens poll is just the latest one 4chan has decided to have some fun with over the past six months.

In August, 4chan hijacked a public Mountain Dew poll which asked fans to vote for the name of a new flavor. The top results were “Gushing Granny,” “Fapple,” and “Hitler did nothing wrong."

In November, Time magazine's Person of the Year poll was gamed by 4chan, Internet Chat Relay (IRC), and Reddit users to have North Korean leader Kim Jong-un take the top spot.

Kim collected 5.9 million votes thanks to a Java script created by IRC user _js5. The script was also used to spell “KJUGASCHAMBERS” using the first letter of each candidate's name. Kim ultimately lost the cover to President Barack Obama, but was crowned the people's choice winner.

4chan followed up this epic prank with Operation White Man Can Jump which unsuccessfully attempted to have only lighter-skinned players start in the 2013 NBA All-Star Game.

The discussion of Hitler's intelligence is older than the Internet itself. Numerous websites have tried to tackle the claim over the years. The top comment on The Top Tens poll sums up how many of these online discussions over the years have evolved.

"Though his motivation was evil, he was indeed brilliantly manipulative, and because of this combination of both brilliance and world impact, he deserves to be on the list," read the top comment, which has received more than 2,100 thumbs up.

Photo by Kerem Tapani/Flickr

Don't fret too much over the #jail4bieber hashtag that's been floating around Twitter this afternoon, devoted Beliebers.

The whole gag is the charming little ruse of the perpetually disturbing content hivemind 4chan, whose minions decided Tuesday afternoon that they'd like to have a little fun at the Bieber faithful's expense.

#jail4Bieber derives from the rumor 4chan's perpetuating that globally beloved pop star Justin Bieber molested a 13-year-old girl while in England on tour the other week. The story kicked off mid-afternoon Tuesday after an anonymous 4chan poster went into the classically demented 4chan forum /b/ and wrote that fellow rapscallions should "spread the news" that Bieber was "late to his first gig because he was sorting legalities out with the [13-year-old girl's] parents" and had to "cancel another gig due to 'breathing difficulties' caused by a panic attack over what he had done."

Rumormongers disseminated the fake news throughout Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, where 4channers have taken to sockpuppet accounts to perpetuate the myth that Justin Bieber is a heartless, bloodless child molester.

On Twitter, where 4channers regularly turn to spread a rumor in a more mainstream forum, the hashtag #jail4bieber has been used more than 300 times.

The antics fall in line with a long history of 4channers running Bieber-centric rumors in hopes of a quick laugh.

More than 900 turned out to convince Beliebers to shave their heads in response to Justin Bieber's obviously fake cancer diagnosis in October. In January, 4channers launched #cut4bieber, an online cry for fans to cut themselves in response to news spreading that Justin Bieber liked smoking pot. The same community pushed #boobs4bieber three weeks later, an ill-fated attempt to get some more underaged boobs onto the Internet.

Time will tell how successful the latest attempt to corrupt Beliebers turns out, but here's guessing the ruse won't last for long.

As for Bieber, the pop star's currently in Madrid prepping for another show on his worldwide Believe tour. He has yet to address 4chan accusations of sexual assault, but did take to Twitter to connect with his 35 million fans just a few hours ago. His message was simple, and it was retweeted 65,000 times. "Hola," he wrote. OMG, Justin, that's soooo poetic.

Photo via Jail4Bieber/Facebook

With the #donglegate sagaerupting, it may come as little surprise that 4chan's anarchic /b/ forum got involved.

At this weekend's programming conference PyCon, developer evangelist Adria Richards overheard a sexual joke about "big dongles" and tweeted a photo of the laughing attendees behind her. She forwarded the image to PyCon staff along with a link to the event's code of conduct. 

The men weren't kicked out, but that image led to one man, an employee with mobile game monetization company PlayHaven, losing his job. The backlash over his firing grew disturbingly misogynist and violent. Days later, Richards was publicly axed by her own employer, email provider SendGrid.

You can read more about the incident and the fallout here and here.

The debate soon hit /b/, the Web community that, most recently, filled Twitter with bogus rumors of a Justin Bieber rape scandal.

Users locked Richards, PlayHaven, and SendGrid in their sights. Many urged others to sign a petition calling for Richards's firing, and seemed to delight when SendGrid suffered from outages in the face of an apparent DDoS attack. The thread's goal: to ruin Richards's life.

We capped it all here. Click images to expand.

Someone suggests affecting Richards's ad partnership with YouTube over apparent racist and sexist remarks.

Others seemed to celebrate as SendGrid was hit by performance issues of an apparent DDoS attack.

Someone claiming to be Richards posted in the thread too, calling for civility. However, the pledge to only apologize "if and only if everything about me is erased from the internet first" seems off. As someone who works in the technology industry, Richards would surely be aware that it's damn near impossible to remove anything from the Internet. It's highly unlikely that this is actually her.

Photo via adriarichards/YouTube

If the forum r/ShitRedditSays (SRS) is Reddit's rambunctious neighborhood watch, a place where users publicly shame others for misogynistic, racist, and just downright nasty content, 4chan's Shit4chanSays (S4S) is what happens when the watch sets fire to the neighborhood.

Shit4chanSays is 4chan's ingenious April Fools' Day prank, a jab at Reddit's controversial r/ShitRedditSays and the demonic stepbrother of /b/, the community's most notorious forum and home for all things random, pornographic, and violent.

The "objective" of Shit4chanSays is to call out anyone for posting "bigoted, creepy, misogynistic, transphobic, racist, homophobic" content. (Ironic, because that description applies to nearly 100 percent of the content on /b/.) If you can't find anything offensive, Shit4chanSays encourages you to "check your privilege."*

But rather than restore order, Shit4chanSays is pure chaos. It's a random collection of anime porn, online oddities, and other nonsense. And just for fun, some images actually fulfill the board's purpose of calling out bad behavior.

Users began to enjoy the forum unironically. "This board is actually pretty great," one wrote. "It's kinda what /b/ used to be, before we got those rules for what we're allowed to post there, and everyone just posting porn all the time. Just random non-sense and fun. Gonna be sad to see it go so soon."

All good April Fools' Day pranks must come to an end. Shit4chanSays is allegedly slated for deletion around 1:30pm ET. Funny that the biggest prank on 4chan—a site known for the meanest pranks on the Internet—is on its users: a fleeting glimpse of what 4chan used to be.

Image via Shit4chanSays

*A popular online expression used to "remind others that the body and life they are born into comes with specific privileges that do not apply to all arguments or situations," KnowYourMeme reports.

Whether you're black, white, heterosexual, or gay, on 4chan you're always some sort of "fag."

4chan's random imageboard, /b/, is one of the most vile and profane corners of the Internet. It’s unapologetically racist and misogynistic, having recently tried to vote an all-white starting lineup into the 2013 NBA All-Star game and get developer advocate Adria Richards fired after she called out attendees of a tech conference on Twitter for making a sexual joke.

The New York Times likened the forum to "a high-school bathroom stall, or an obscene telephone party line." Users trade obscenities there like currency, posting an endless stream of foul language and crude images. Most posts contain some variation of the derogatory term "fag," whether describing a veteran 4chan user ("oldfag") or someone who dabbles in art ("drawfag").

Yet through all of this vitriol, or perhaps in spite of it, a new safe haven for the LGBT community has emerged.

This is not a late April Fools' Day joke or an elaborate hoax for the lulz. The Internet’s most notorious troll forum—a place where meaningful discourse is shrouded in juvenile innuendo or derailed completely by graphic images of genitalia—is taking a stand for gay rights.

On March 18, /lgbt/ was launched by 4chan, along with boards dedicated to alternative sports, graphic design, the outdoors, and retro video games. Each community was started anonymously and has been added on a trial basis.

Of course, 4chan has always been about far more than just /b/. The site, launched in 2004 by Christopher "moot" Poole, currently hosts over 40 different imageboards, focusing on topics like music, politics, and travel, and most of them aren’t nearly as raunchy as /b/. Users share fashion advice on /fa/, encourage each other to get in shape on /fit/, and trade recipes on /ck/. In January, 4chan's auto board, /o/, even helped police track down a group of California drivers who stopped traffic on a highway to do donuts.   

Yet given 4chan’s general reputation, the addition of an LGBT-positive community—the site’s first board devoted to a serious societal issue—was notable, and the response to it even more so.

The board boasts more than a dozen active threads, touched on heavy topics like reproductive rights, gender, and same-sex marriage. Instead of trolling, the conversations reveal an earnest side to online anonymity, allowing users to open up about personal issues—hair removal, hormone therapy, coming out—without fear of reproach.

/lgbt/ has already featured a handful of posts from people asking about their bodies, how to dress, and different sexual orientations. For example, the /lgbt/ community provided the following advice to a guy struggling to identify as bisexual or pansexual.

"There are two sexes (well in all practicality, anyway)," user NeverTrollin commented. "Yes there are also hermaphrodites and pseudo-hermaphrodites of all sorts of chromosomal makeup, but there are more than two genders. You are pansexual if you are attracted to people of those other non-binary genders, as well as two the binary two."

It’s difficult not to see the symbolism in 4chan’s actions. Last week, as the Supreme Court considered California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), more than 2.7 million Facebook users changed their profile photos to the "Red Equals Sign" in support of marriage equality.

With /lgbt/, 4chan not only enters the national conversation but manages to do in a civil and thoughtful manner. (Unfortunately, the handful of threads about marriage equality on /lgbt/  have since been bumped offline, due to 4chan's lack of an archive system.)

It's a bold and necessary step for a site that has long been preceded by its reputation.

If the Internet's most notorious site can embrace and respect the LGBT community, perhaps the rest of the Internet can’t be too far behind.

Illustration by Fernando Alfonso III

Budgetary concerns and the desire not to destroy other planets is why the White House shot down plans to construct a Death Star, after more than 34,000 people, mostly from 4chan, signed a petition to build one.

No, really: budgetary concerns and the desire not to destroy other planets.

Those were some of the reasons the White House cited in its response on Friday afternoon, written by Paul Shawcross, chief of the Science and Space Branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

You may remember a few weeks ago when a little petition on the White House's We the People site was gaining popularity on 4chan. Within days, it had already reached the 25,000-signature threshold that warrants the White House to respond, which they did in a post titled “This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For.”

But once you start reading the response, you'll realize it was exactly the answer we were looking for:

The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn't on the horizon. Here are a few reasons:

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000. We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.

• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.

• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

That type of research deserves a round of applause. But interestingly, the post goes on to say that even if we don't have a star that can destroy planets or house Darth Vader, we have something similar: the International Space Station. Shawcross goes on to discuss the work being done in space right now by the United States and its partners that, in his mind, outweighs having a massive Death Star. And he concludes by asking people to consider a career in math, science, engineering, or a technology-related field.

If you do, "the Force will be with us! Remember, the Death Star's power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force,” he wrote.

Photo via Michael Wifall/Flickr

The Internet hivemind continued its vigilante search today for individuals who planted the two bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line. Some believe they may have actually found a culprit.

Users on 4chan's /b/, an imageboard known publicly for its disturbing humor and strange porn, have sifted through countless photo galleries and circled in on a man who went to the marathon's finish line wearing black pants, a black shirt, and a white hat. He brought a black backpack to the race—one 4channers believe looks an awful lot like backpack shown ripped to shreds by explosives in this Al Jazeera story—but, as one 4channer pointed out, the man's backpack seems to be missing in subsequent aerial shots taken of the finish line crowd. 

The image thread has become a popular talking point on Tumblr, where a post by Based Heisenberg, a user who claims to have been "in the 4chan thread when this discussion went down," has received more than 7,000 notes. 

Other 4channers have used that same Al Jazeera photo to implicate a taller man who wore a maroon T-shirt and blue jacket to the race on Monday. 

That individual carried a similarly black backpack to the race that day. The big difference: That backpack, like the one shown in the Al Jazeera photo, had a silver trim across both straps. 

Those working behind the scenes have also opened up a Google Docs spreadsheet to keep track of all the ideas and information coming in from likeminded researchers. Separated into eight tabs, the spreadsheet breaks down recognized Bomb Info, Victim Info, Scene and Evidence Photos, Suspect Information, and four individuals in specific: Mr. Cardigan, the 4Chan Music Man, Bending Over guy, and the two aforementioned "Backpack Bros."

Not everyone has taken the search as seriously as the individuals operating that spreadsheet, however. Other 4Channers have mocked the search, bringing Where's Waldo? references into the picture and adding obsessive footnotes and citation marks to each image, many of which have nothing to do with the bombing whatsoever.

That sentiment, as well as the general notion of accusing potentially innocent race-goers, has irked a few involved with the search. One redditor was even moved to reference Richard Jewell, the security guard originally suspected of planting the bomb at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

"This sub[reddit] is dedicated to pointing out random people in a crowd photograph and declaring your suspicions," the individual wrote in the Reddit subreddit r/findbostonbombers. "You're starting the trial by public aspect.

"Who knows? You may get lucky and your pet suspect turns out to be the bomber. But I've seen at least 10 people singled out, and not all of you are correct. You should be very very careful about picking and choosing who you think killed three people and wounded many more, based on where they were standing and if they were carrying a backpack or not."

Update: Meanwhile, on Reddit, the leader of the chaotic r/FindBostonBombers forum lashed out at the media for bringing innocent people into the spotlight. This redditor isn't entirely wrong—consider the New York Post's shameless misreporting—but he should know by now that, as Kevin Morris points out, there can be very real consequences when you post something to the Internet.

Photo via Imgur

A Dutch student has been arrested and about 20 schools around the Netherlands were closed Monday after a threat made on 4chan, one of the Internet's most controversial forums.

The decision to close the schools came down Sunday after the anonymous man posted a photo on 4chan of a handgun and multiple clips along with the following message: "I will shoot my Dutch teacher and as many students as I can. It's at a school in the Dutch city of Leiden. for more proof, I will be using a 9mm Colt Defender."

Screengrab via 4chan/The Verge

The man behind the 4chan post is "a former pupil reportedly expelled in 2011 over bad behavior," the Verge reported. He was arrested Monday, just one week after the Boston Marathon bombing killed three people and injured more than 180.

Since January, at least two other threats of mass violence have been posted on 4chan. On January 18, an Oklahoma man was arrested by the FBI after he threatened to attack the town of Casper with two pistols, knives, and some carpentry tools. A Virginia man was arrested on April 12 after shooting two women at a local mall. The man reportedly identified himself as Neil Macinnis on 4chan's random imageboard /b/ before the shooting and provided a detailed list of the weapons he planned on using.

H/T The Verge; Image via Reddit

Actor Samuel L. Jackson's first experience on Reddit is one he'll never forget. And he has the notorious trolls of 4chan's /b/ to thank for that.

It all started on Wednesday when the 64-year-old Pulp Fiction star joined Reddit to help raise money for the Alzheimer's Association by doing what he does best: delivering a badass monologue peppered with the word “motherf*cker.”

"It's simple, write 300 words and the most upvoted post I'll read out loud in monologue form," Jackson wrote in a post on r/movies. "As a BONUS, I'm offering you all the chance to be flown to the UK for lunch with ME in return for just a tiny donation to this amazing cause. I'll also sign a beloved Kangol hat and mail it to anyone that donates $200 or more!"

What happened over the next day or so proved to be the polar opposite of simple. Due to the Internet's love affair with Jackson and his foul-mouthed antics, the Reddit thread was bombarded with thousands of monologue suggestions. Woven between original suggestions, like redditor teaguechrystie’s informational message, called the "new alarm clock," were countless comments containing a story about a macho Navy Seal "involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Qaeda." Most of these duplicate comments were deleted by the moderators but at least two (by cockrageson and slubice) ended up collecting more than 2,000 points combined.

What Jackson probably didn't realize was that these threads were posted by 4chan users in an attempt to rig the contest using what's known as the Navy Seal copypasta, a three-year-old "facetious message containing a series of ridiculous claims and grandiose threats that portray the poster as an Internet tough guy stereotype," Know Your Meme reported.

"Within a few minutes of the posting of this [Jackson] thread, the Internet forum 4Chan got wind of it and began a campaign to hijack this thread with the NavySeals copypasta, encouraging people to get accounts, upvote one comment and downvote the others," r/movies moderator girafa wrote in a lengthy comment Thursday. "They even dox'd (found out the real identity of) the poster of the alarm clock monologue and have been harassing him all day."

The details of 4chan's raid were archived on chanarchive. In the original 4chan post, an anonymous user singles out comments to downvote, including the “alarm clock monologue,” which had become hugely popular and blocked the Navy Seal copypasta from the top spot.

"[N]o matter what [Jackson is] still gonna read the alarm clock bullshit and teaguechrystie will still use it to jumpstart his writing career," one anonymous 4chan user wrote.

Also buried within the original 4chan thread were a handful of comments complaining over the current state of the imageboard and its renewed obsession with vote rigging.

In November, Time magazine's coveted Person of the Year poll was gamed by 4chan's notorious /b/ community—known for its obscene language, pornographic tendencies, and penchant for all things illegal—to have North Korean leader Kim Jong-un win the top spot. Kim collected 5.9 million votes thanks to a Java script created by Internet Relay Chat (IRC) user _js5. That same script also helped _js5 and a group of IRC users manipulate the public poll to spell “KJU GAS CHAMBERS” using the first letter of each candidate's name.

On January 7,  4chan launched the sinister #cutforbieber hoax to encourage young Justin Bieber fans to tweet photos of their bloodied arms in response to a leaked picture of Bieber smoking marijuana. The mission: "see if we can get some little girls to cut themselves." About a week later, 4chan gamed a public Facebook contest to have rapper Lil B perform at the 55th annual Grammy Awards. This prank, as well as one to try and vote only lighter-skinned players as starters in the 2013 NBA All-Star Game, proved to be a failure.

From the looks of it, the Jackson raid will also be a bust.

Jackson has yet to officially announce the winner of the contest, although 4chan believes the alarm clock monologue came out on top, despite /b/’s efforts.

"It went back and forth the entire time," one anonymous 4chan user wrote. "No fucking way to tell who won because of their shit voting system. It's really up [to Jackson] and I think he's going to read the alarm clock shit."
 

Update: Here's the winning monologue.

Jackson says he's "breaking the rules" of his own contest and releasing his own speech… in which he announces he's quitting acting to hide underground like Batman, lurking in the shadows and fighting crime with his intimidating voice. 

Clever, Reddit. You fooled us.

Photo by mikedish/Flickr | Remix by Fernando Alfonso III

The trial of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer accused of murdering teenager Trayvon Martin in February 2012, was interrupted Wednesday by the merry pranksters of 4chan's random imageboard /b/ and political board /pol/.

During a Skype video interview of a witness, 4chan users under the names Salman Talpur and Marcus placed a series of calls to the number. 

Pranksters appear to be interrupting the Skype interview of a witness during the Zimmerman trial - pic.twitter.com/7t6dXO5iqa

— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) July 3, 2013

Last week, the State proved it didn't know how Twitter works. This week, the State proved it didn't know how Skype works.

— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) July 3, 2013

"This Skype call being repeatedly interrupted as witness gets repeated incoming calls," @reneestutzman tweeted. "Alerts sound like something out of RoadRunner."

The interrupted witness was Gordon Scott Pleasants, a professor at Florida's Seminole State College who was in Colorado during the hearing. Pleasants, who spoke for the defense, taught at the school Zimmerman once attended. Following the interruption, the court decided to have Pleasants testify over the phone instead of video. 

Here's video:

This disruption was allegedly caused by users who tracked down the Skype number online.

"I knew it you marvelous bastards," one anonymous user wrote. "I was laughing my ass off saying to myself... 'fucking /b/'"

4chan's /b/ is notorious for such online pranks. Its members were previously responsible for rigging Time magazine's Person of the Year poll to have North Korea's Kim Jong-un win, helping the hashtag #cutforbieber trend on Twitter, and gaming a Mountain Dew flavoring contest to have names like "Hitler did nothing wrong" rise to the top. Most recently, /b/ was responsible for ruining actor Samuel L. Jackson's first Reddit experience. 

About a month ago, a group of 4chan trolls raided a contest Jackson organized to raise money for the Alzheimer's Association. Jackson promised to read the most popular comment in a video. Thanks to 4chan, some of the most popular comments were the infamous Navy Seal copypasta, a three-year-old "facetious message containing a series of ridiculous claims and grandiose threats that portray the poster as an Internet tough guy stereotype," Know Your Meme reported. Thankfully, Jackson did not end up reading the copypasta in his message.

There was a lot of interference on skype , a lot of strange noises that caused laughter in court. #Zimmermanon9

— Kathi Belich, WFTV (@KBelichWFTV) July 3, 2013

Could the pranksters be fined?

@judgealexferrer#Zimmerman trial via Skype be fined for disrupting court?

— Cortney Kaczor (@Cortjo73) July 3, 2013

It's unlikely, but it could always be someone else:

Although that might not be a great idea:

Won't be hard to find the Zimmerman pranksters; Skype is a partner in the NSA's PRISM program.

— Matthew Keys (@MatthewKeysLive) July 3, 2013

The shooting of Martin has been a hotbed of discussion on social media for the past 14 months. 

On the night of Feb. 26, 2012, Zimmerman was out running an errand in the gated Sanford, Florida, community when he spotted Martin on the street looking "suspicious." Zimmerman claims that Martin attacked him, which resulted in Zimmerman shooting the teenager in self-defense. Martin was unarmed at the time.

Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder on April 11, 2012.

H/T Matthew Keys | Screengrabs via YouTube/4chan | Remix by Fernando Alfonso III

For the second time in the past 11 months, a public contest featuring singer Taylor Swift has been infiltrated by the vote-rigging brigade over at 4chan's random imageboard /b/, the Internet's favorite bathroom stall. 

The latest contest, sponsored by Boston's Kiss 108FM, gives one winner the chance to meet Swift, take a photo with her, and attend her show at Gillette Stadium on July 27. 

The radio station's FAQ page encourages people to "vote for a contestant by visiting their unique link daily (every 24 hours)." It's a blatant plea for traffic, and it makes the contest pretty easy to spam. 

Late Monday night, 4chan began voting for one lonely "fat old guy creep" named Charles to help "give him a chance to make a complete ass of himself by blatantly just sniffing her hair with cameras rolling." 

At about 1am ET Tuesday, Charles was in third place, stuck behind some legitimate Swift fans. By about 9am ET, he was in first.

"/b/ you glorious f****ts," one anonymous 4chan user wrote on /b/. "You magnificent fucking bastards. I am fucking proud. … That said, the war has not yet been won, there is still work to do. We still have five days and its obvious our top competition is using scripts too."

According to a post on Reddit's 4chan forum, /b/ has used a script to automate the voting process using 500 different computers around the world. 

These sort of vote-rigging tactics have become 4chan's specialty over the past year. 

In August, 4chan gamed a public vote to have Swift perform at Boston’s Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, one of the oldest public schools of its kind in the county. The school ended up winning the contest but was disqualified because of the manner in which is received votes.

A month later, Swift donated $50,000 to the school. This included a personal donation from Swift for $10,000, which was matched by the sponsors, as well as American Greetings and Cover Girl. VH1’s Save the Music program donated a fifth $10,000 gift in order to buy musical instruments for Horace Mann students. 

In November, Time magazine's Person of the Year poll was gamed by 4chan, Internet Chat Relay (IRC), and Reddit users to have North Korean leader Kim Jong-un take the top spot. Kim collected 5.9 million votes thanks to a Java script created by IRC user _js5. The script was also used to spell “KJUGASCHAMBERS” using the first letter of each candidate's name. Kim ultimately lost the cover to President Barack Obama, but was crowned the people's choice champ. 

4chan followed up this epic prank with Operation White Man Can Jump, which unsuccessfully attempted to have only light-skinned players start in the 2013 NBA All-Star Game. And in May, 4chan's /b/ raided a Reddit-powered contest sponsored by actor Samuel L. Jackson to have him read an original monologue. Woven between original suggestions, like redditor teaguechrystie’s informational message, called the "new alarm clock," were countless comments containing the infamous Navy Seal copypasta, a three-year-old message filled with ludicrously violent claims.

As was the case with all those schemes, chances are 4chan's latest will likely fail. In the radio station's official rules, it states: "If a contestant receives multiple and/or irregular votes from the same user or users, regardless of the source, the Station reserves the right to disqualify the Contestant its sole discretion."

Photo by evarinaldiphotography/Flickr

A contest to give one lucky Taylor Swift fan a chance to meet the singer was canceled after users from 4chan's /b/ forum successfully helped a "fat old guy" rise to the top.

Undeterred, /b/ put the same man in the running to meet Selena Gomez as part of a contest hosted by New York's Z100 radio station.

4chan's latest voting vendetta began a week ago after /b/, an infamous corner of the Internet where pornographic images and obscenities are openly exchanged, discovered the website for Boston's Kiss 108FM contest. The public competition encouraged people to "vote for a contestant by visiting their unique link daily (every 24 hours)." One of the contestants was a man named Charles Z., described as 39, male, fat, and lonely.

By 9am EST Tuesday, Charles had beat out a bunch of teens for the top spot. 

"/b/ you glorious f****ts," one anonymous 4chan user wrote. "You magnificent fucking bastards. I am fucking proud. … That said, the war has not yet been won, there is still work to do. We still have five days and its obvious our top competition is using scripts too."

About three days later, Kiss 108FM cancelled the contest and posted the following message.

Despite its laundry list of failed attempts to game public contests, /b/ did not take this one lightly.

Over the weekend, /b/ quickly launched the Twitter hashtag #justice4charles on Twitter where it collected more than 650 mentions. A Facebook page under the same name was also launched. It has since collected 1,240 likes, And on Change.org a petition has collected 196 votes from people calling for Kiss 108FM to reverse its decision.

Then, late Sunday night, /b/ got creative. Unsatisfied with Kiss 108FM, /b/ descended on Z100 to help Charles win a chance to see Gomez "at the Good Morning America Summer Concert Series in Central Park on July 26—and MEET her, along with a friend, courtesy of Hollywood Records," the radio's site stated. Charles has already jumped from the 11th to sixth spot. 

Like Kiss 108FM's contest, Z100 has strict rules prohibiting any sort of fraudulent or irregular votes generated through "a robotic, programmed, script, macro, other automated means or other source." In other words, /b/'s scheme will be added to it's growing list of 2013 failed pranks.

In late December /b/ launched Operation White Man Can Jump, which unsuccessfully attempted to have only light-skinned players start in the 2013 NBA All-Star Game. And in May, 4chan's /b/ raided a Reddit-powered contest to have actor Samuel L. Jackson read an original monologue. Woven in between original suggestions, like redditor teaguechrystie’s informational message, called the "new alarm clock," were countless comments containing the infamous Navy Seal copypasta, a three-year-old diatribe filled with ludicrously violent claims.

Voting for Z100's contest will end on July 23 at 11:59am EST. And this time around, Charles really wants to win. Just take a look at this photo he tweeted Saturday.

This whole @taylorswift13 thing has me down, but all you kids have been awesome champions. pic.twitter.com/sFdBwG0PLT

— Charles Z. (@cgz79) July 20, 2013

Update: As of 1:30pm EST Z100 has ended the contest nearly a day early. No other explanation was given except for "THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING. THIS CONTEST HAS ENDED."

Photo by canoblesfamily/Flickr

What do Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, and the Jonas Brothers have in common?

They have all been the subject of 4chan's latest vote rigging obsession, perpetrated by members of its random imageboard /b/, a photo forum responsible for high profile pranks and a penchant for pornography.

Since July 15, /b/ has tried desperately to have a slovenly-looking fellow named Charles meet each of these celebrities so he can sniff their hair.

This whole @taylorswift13 thing has me down, but all you kids have been awesome champions. pic.twitter.com/sFdBwG0PLT

— Charles Z. (@cgz79) July 20, 2013

/b/ has successfully infiltrated these contests by allegedly running scripts to automate the voting process on contests sponsored by Boston's Kiss 108FM and New York's Z100, which are both owned by Clear Channel.

In each of the contests, /b/ helped Charles reach one of the top six spots before the radio stations had to prematurely shut down voting.

After the Z100 contest to meet Gomez was cancelled Monday, 24 hours early, /b/ switched its focus to a Z100 contest to have one lucky person hang with the Jonas Brothers in "their Z Lounge Lunchtime Event on Thursday, July 25, then MEET them - and later that night, watch their show from amazing upfront seats at the PNC Bank Arts Center," the radio station stated. 

This Jonas Brothers contest ultimately befell the same fate as Gomez's and Swift's. It was cancelled sometime Tuesday morning with about a day left, with Z100 issuing the exact same response they posted after Gomez's contest was cancelled Monday. Kiss 108FM provided a little bit more detail after axing Swift's contest Saturday, admitting that the integrity of its voting system had been compromised.

/b/ was apparently so upset over the cancellation of the contests that it temporarily took down about 850 websites belonging to Clear Channel's radio stations. It is unclear whether the takedowns were deliberate or part of /b/'s ongoing attempts to have Charles win a contest. 

Nevertheless, /b/ was more than happy to revel in the result.

Photo by nostri-imago/Flickr