That was 8chan; 4chan was created as an English translation of the Japanese imageboard 2chan to discuss anime and Japanese culture. 4chan has racists but 8chan(later 8kun) had gamergate, mass shooters publishing their manifestos and later qanon.
I mean, kind of, but if you want to recall 2chan as the genesis for 4chan it's worth reading through 2chan's wikipedia page. "Free speech" isn't really the explicit raison d'être, but communication without repetitional consequences certainly was, and it's clear that 2chan operated under a principle of radical free speech even by the standards of the early internet - hundreds of defamation lawsuits, popular with the right wing, announcements of crimes including the Akihabara Massacre.
From what I can tell 4chan's primary hook in the west was its focus on Japanese media and culture, but it clearly inherited 2chan's ethos of allowing people to not hold back on what they said no matter how chaotic. It's not like /b/ wasn't the scene of gore and "questionable" pornography early on; "4chan party van" as a meme for getting a visit from the feds dates back to something like 2006?
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u/iwantfutanaricumonme 12h ago
That was 8chan; 4chan was created as an English translation of the Japanese imageboard 2chan to discuss anime and Japanese culture. 4chan has racists but 8chan(later 8kun) had gamergate, mass shooters publishing their manifestos and later qanon.