Article details 8 comments
27/04 2009

Time Magazine Gets Owned by Social Media

And I thought I had seen it all… well… enough for my 24 years on this earth… apparently not.

I was reading an article at Mashable about the founder of a “legendary memebreeding forum” called 4Chan topping the Time’s 100 Most Influtential People Poll. I had to read the article twice. The person called “moot” is the founder of a website? A founder of a website beat out the likes of Rick Warren and Anwar Ibrahim? Say it ain’t so. 

What is hilarious is that the list was apparantly hacked by 4chan users in an attempt (successful attempt) to completely deface the Time 100 Poll. The surprising thing is not only did Moot win the poll but his followers also hacked away at the entire list. According to Mashable: 

“The vote is obviously hacked. Time’s attempts to fix the damage came too late, and the 4chan folks managed to put the encrypted message back into order (if you read the first letters of the first 21 names on the list, the message reads “Marblecake also the game”).”

The world is becoming smaller. One the most influential magazines in the world was infected by an anime/meme forum. Despite the fact that Time magazine built up defenses and put a captcha in place… it was too late to quell the amost 17 million votes for the 4chan founder. 

To be honest with you… the important lesson to be learned from all of this…

You can’t afford to ignore the Internet. It is NOW a part of life… our daily routine… for people, cultures, and clients. 

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  1. ICanHasAssembly
    27/04 2009

    4Chan is not bloody social media, social media is the kind of idiots that have twitter accounts,
    while /btards are the kind of people that write their own chat macros.

  2. 27/04 2009

    Isn't social media two-way communication using a technology? Sounds like 4chan to me. Maybe I am wrong. Please let me know.

  3. 27/04 2009

    Haha, I just found out about this. Go 4chan. (Although to be fair…that sentence should never ever be used again.) This definitely is a victory for those of us who do want the rest of the world to stand up and take notice. I mean if Moot can make the list as Time's Most Influential person…I'm at least 99th on that list.

  4. anonymous
    27/04 2009

    MARBLECAKE FOREVER!

  5. Adam Helweh
    27/04 2009

    I would consider these guys straight "hackers".

  6. 27/04 2009

    [...] C­on­t­i­n­ue­d he­re­: Ti­m­e M­agaz­i­n­e Gets­ Ow­n­ed by S­oc­i&#… [...]

  7. 27/04 2009

    don't recall the 4chan guy, time to do a bit of research, thanks for sharing this.

  8. ICanHasAssembly
    27/04 2009

    "Isn't social media two-way communication using a technology?"
    So is the telephone.
    Are you calling 4chan a telephone ?!

    You're wrong. Letting you know.