Will Martin Shkreli Save 4chan’s Infamous Message Board?

4Chan, the notorious imageboard website, is struggling to stay afloat, according to the site’s owner, Hiroyuki Nisimura. Nisimura, who bought 4chan last year, said, “4chan can’t afford infrastructure costs, network fee, servers cost, CDN and etc, now.” Nisimura went on to say that the company hasn’t been able to make enough with ads or subscriptions. “We had tried to keep 4chan as is. But I failed. I am sincerely sorry,” Nisimura writes.

In order for 4chan to survive, the company will need to start selling more subscriptions, or slowly shut down the site. While we’re not sure how bad the situation really is, Nisimura says that he promises to make changes to help save the site because he doesn’t want to see it go.

It might be bad enough if Martin Shkreli is interested in buying 4chan. Martin Shkreli posted on his Twitter, “I’m open to joining the Board of Directors of 4chan.”

Shkreli might be the one to save 4chan’s infamous message board. Shkreli did spark Nisimura’s interest because he responded to Shkreli’s tweet saying, “I have replied your DM. Thanks for support 4chan.”

The two may be a perfect match because 4chan also had a rough path. A 4chan user murdered a woman in Port Orchard, Washington and uploaded pictures of the scene to the site. Another user attempted to live stream setting himself on fire, while fellow 4chan users encouraged him.

Running sites like 4chan is not cheap by any means, especially due to servers and bandwidth, plus there is also the liability with letting users post whatever they want. This may be a prime opportunity for Martin Shkreli to buy 4chan, since Nisimura has been unsuccessful with increasing the site's revenue through paid features such as “4chan Pass.”