> "My guess is because 4chan was being used as an organizing nexus for a bunch of people widely seen as abusive and misogynist, and he just no longer wanted the headache."
If I operated 4chan and wanted to get the racists out of my hair, the last thing I'd do is ban mention of other sites they could go to besides 4chan. If mentioning 8chan gets them to leave 4chan for 8chan, then that's a win for me, right?
My guess is that it was a combination of peer pressure and a measure against organized attacks against 4chan.
> "If I operated 4chan and wanted to get the racists out of my hair, the last thing I'd do is ban mention of other sites they could go to besides 4chan. If mentioning 8chan gets them to leave 4chan for 8chan, then that's a win for me, right?"
That's what ended up happening though. By barring discussion of GamerGate and 8chan, its supporters wound up on 8chan. After all, the really toxic GamerGaters were already well-organized on Twitter, and banning 8chan-related discussion is not going to stop the die-hard from hearing about 8chan through the grapevine.
You suppose that banning discussion of 8chan actually drove adoption of 8chan, which might be true. Was that really what moot was banking on though? That seems like an unlikely bet.
If I were moot and if I had wanted to get rid of these people, I would have flat out told them to go to 8chan. The "really toxic GamerGaters on twitter" likely comprise a minority of the people I would want to get rid of (I assume in all movements there is a silent majority. Most people who think something are too lazy to actually go out and talk about it), and the common mode of communication between all people who use my hypothetical site is my site.
If I operated 4chan and wanted to get the racists out of my hair, the last thing I'd do is ban mention of other sites they could go to besides 4chan. If mentioning 8chan gets them to leave 4chan for 8chan, then that's a win for me, right?
My guess is that it was a combination of peer pressure and a measure against organized attacks against 4chan.