Notorious internet image board 4chan has always thrived on conflict—but its latest kerfuffle is entirely internal. A rival group hacked the board, exposing user data and deepening the rifts within a community built on chaos and anonymity.
On Monday, 4chan went offline around 2:02 p.m. EST, with over 1,200 outage reports logged on Downdetector. Users on X (formerly Twitter) quickly pointed to a hack by an imageboard group known as the Soyjak Party—also called “the Sharty.” The hackers allegedly exploited outdated MySQL and PHP software to access 4chan’s servers.
Launched in 2020 as a site for sharing “Soyjak” memes—a soyjak is an emasculated man—Soyjak Party grew into a major hub for former 4chan users, particularly from the now defunct /qa/board, the questions and answers section of 4chan that contained messages related to the site’s operations. The 4chan spinoff grew into a subculture with millions of posts online.
Beyond the culture clash, the breach also exposed sensitive infrastructure and personal data. The hackers accessed backend information, including user IP logs, email addresses, private messages related to bans, and 4chan’s source code.
“Tonight has been a very special night for many of us at the Soyjak party,” a message on the Soyjak imageboard said. “Today, April 14, 2025, a hacker, who has been in 4cuck's system for over a year, executed the true operation soyclipse, reopening /qa/, exposing personal information of various 4cuck staff, and leaking code from the site.”
4chan admins had taken all servers offline to contain the fallout, though the post claimed the servers were already fully compromised. The post also noted a surge of 4chan refugees arriving on the Sharty, many clashing with the site’s culture.
“For nuteens, the last oldGODs, and everyone in between,” the user said, “tonight has been cathartic.”
“Nuteen” is internet slang for new teens—newbies who are seen as clueless about history or culture and viewed with disdain by longtime members.
Once they gained access, the hackers leaked source code, admin logs, and email addresses of moderators—known on 4chan as “janitors” or “jannies”—some of which were linked to real names and .edu domains.
The situation escalated when faked screenshots featuring .gov email addresses began circulating online, fueling conspiracy theories that 4chan was a government honeypot.
According to cybersecurity collective VX-Underground, the roots of the breach may lie in long-standing tensions between 4chan’s /qa/ board—once used for site discussion—and the /lgbt/ board, which became a target of user raids. When moderators shut down /qa/, some of its displaced users migrated to Soyjak Party, where resentment toward 4chan’s leadership continued to grow.
For the pseudonymous Smelly, who identifies as the founder of VX-Underground, the war between 4chan and Soyjak is business as usual on image boards.
“Nerds got mad because they accused 4chan of being more akin to Reddit now and asserted 4chan had lost its edge—in much less kind words,” Smelly said in a Telegram chat with Decrypt. “So they left to Soyjak.st, the forwarded domain, and some people from there decided to compromise 4chan.”
“This isn’t really shocking behavior—these imageboards and *chans have historically always had conflict with different boards or domains,” Smelly noted.
Launched in 2003, 4chan is an anonymous imageboard that spawned viral memes and online movements while often operating outside the norms of mainstream platforms. The QAnon movement is believed to have originated on its /pol/ board in late October 2017, as well as several popular memes including lolcats, rickrolling, wojaks, and Pepe the Frog.
Over the years, 4chan has spawned many high-profile and controversial incidents that have shaped internet culture and the world. At one time or another, the board targeted Scientology, Sarah Palin, and Trayvon Martin. It also played a central role in Gamergate, a movement that harassed women who were prominent in online gaming, and was one of the first places where meme culture was harnessed as a political and cultural weapon.
The recent data breach underscores the irony that 4chan, a site built on chaos, is now being undone by it.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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