At South by Southwest this year, 4chan founder Christopher Poole delivered an interesting speech in which he (to no one’s surprise) supported Internet anonymity, as well as called the imageboard, as well as its infamous subforum, /b/, misunderstood.

“4Chan is misunderstood – people like to think that /b/ is the dark heart of the internet. It isn’t just that.

People want to think everyone on 4Chan is a young rambunctious male. That’s not accurate – it’s a wide range of people using it. One of the things that 4Chan does that’s really special is the way people come together to collaborate en masse. It’s the process at which you arrive at the product that is fascinating.”

Poole also discussed Facebook honcho Mark Zuckerberg, declaring Zuckerberg’s views on anonymity incorrect.

“Zuckerberg’s totally wrong on anonymity being total cowardice. Anonymity is authenticity. It allows you to share in a completely unvarnished, raw way.

The cost of failure is really high when you’re contributing as yourself.”

He also discussed a mistake he feels he made with 4chan, which is believing the community can police itself, given the right tools.

“One of the mistakes I’ve made is believing in an invisible guiding hand as far as moderation goes. And that if you give the community the right structure they could police themselves.

“I’ve underestimated the value of having a real staff presence, and encouraging them to police the boards behind the scenes. When it’s not clear that we’re leading things it’s like we’re not there and that we don’t care – it’s extremely detrimental to community.”

Head on past the break to watch the other two parts from Poole’s speech, which features some behind-the-scenes information, including popular memes like CAPTCHArt.

This afternoon, Christopher Poole, a.k.a. moot, announced the closed beta launch of Canvas (canv.as), which aspires to be “the best place to share and play with images.” The site looks pretty enough [though I say this based on screenshots, having not received one of the 4,000 launch invites], but what makes this launch notable is moot’s role as the founder and administrator of 4chan.org [warning: 4chan], the feared and revered imageboard and hub of breathtaking creativity and unspeakable villainy.

Thanks to its founder and its image-centric nature, comparisons to 4chan are inevitable for Canvas, which raised $625,000 in funding. TechCrunch guesses that “more than a few of the 4chan crowd may head over to Canvas to take a gander.” Maybe so, but Canvas, which some in the tech press have referred to as “4chan 2,” has its work cut out for it if it wants to win over the sizable population of 4chan 1.0.

Perpetually good vibe-emitting rocker Andrew W.K. is about to put his ability to be a chill bro to the ultimate test: On February 13th at 7pm EST, W.K., who has previously hosted a reality show about answering people’s questions and once held a live event in which anybody could ask him anything, will be appearing on notorious imageboard 4chan to host a live Q&A.

Notorious website of notoriety 4chan.org is currently down; even if you manage to get on the site’s frontpage, which as of posting could take well over a minute, the boards and images are all offline. According to site administrator Christopher “moot” Poole, the site is down “due to DDoS. We now join the ranks of MasterCard, Visa, PayPal, et al.—an exclusive club!” As of posting, downforeveryoneorjustme.com confirms that the site is down.

Yesterday, Internet vigilante group Anonymous, which has loose ties with some 4chan forumers, launched a DDoS attack against Bank of America’s website, an act of retaliation which they said came in response to Bank of America’s refusal to process payments or donations to WikiLeaks.

Placing bets on which group could be behind this. Banks that cut off WikiLeaks’ funding and were hit with DDoSes this past month retaliating themselves? Tumblr kids who still take the 4chan/Tumblr war seriously? 4chan?

(4chan status via Slashdot. title pic via 4chan’s Twitter.)

Trolling, or “posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion” (h/t Wikipedia), is the hot new Internet trend, and a guaranteed way to increase your social media currency.

But the million-dollar question is: How can aspiring viral marketers harness the power of trolling for greater user engagement in online communities? These five self-illustrative trolling guides will show you the way:

Earlier this year, 4chan founder Christopher Poole, a.k.a. moot, was called to testify in the trial of David Kernell, a 4chan user who was ultimately convicted of computer fraud and obstruction of justice for his role in “hacking” into Sarah Palin’s email account and leaking screenshots during the 2008 election. Note that this “hack” consisted of “reset[ting] Palin’s password using her birthdate, ZIP code and information about where she met her spouse — the security question on her Yahoo account, which was answered (Wasilla High) by a simple Google search”; not exactly the height of state security.

Anyway: During the trial, moot was asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Krotoski to define some common online and 4chan lingo, including “troll,” “Rickroll,” “404,” “.jpg,” and even “/b/tard.” (Yes, this is a violation of rules 1 and 2, but hey, he was under oath.)

Some choice excerpts below:

Christopher Poole, a.k.a. moot, stumbled upon a Japanese forum and subsequently launched an Internet empire. So large and interesting an empire, in fact, that he was invited to speak at TED. The talk covers a surprisingly broad subject matter in such a short time. From the origins of the site to its social impact, he covers nearly everything about the what, where, why, and when, and distinct lack of a who behind his chaotic forum.

In the brief Q&A after his talk, Poole is pressed to defend the supreme message of anonymity he advocates, and he does a great job. Other excerpts from the video include parental response, former music stars jumping out of floats, why his site’s viewers are better than CSI, marble cake, and the game.

No.

Here’s the fact pattern, if you haven’t already heard it: One way the TSA trains screeners to use full-body scanners is by having the employees screen each other using the machines. One employee who was screened in the course of the training was thereafter teased “on a daily basis” by his co-workers for having a “small penis.” He eventually flipped out and non-lethally beat up one of his daily teasers. Not going to name the employee in question here, but The Smoking Gun has the police report.

The story touched a nerve because 1) people are uneasy about full body scanners and worried that they may endure similar teasing or even have pictures of them leak onto the Internet, and 2) it involves the phrase “small penis.” Got it. It’s a tech story, a security story, and an “oddly enough” story all at once. But does the employee in question really deserve to have his name and face plastered all over the Internet, including on at least one newspaper’s website?

One year ago, 4chan thrust its Dear Leader moot — and by extension, itself — into the public eye when it hacked the online poll for the TIME 100, TIME‘s annual list of key influencers in a variety of fields. Not only that: They rigged the poll such that the names of the first 21 people spelled “Marblecake, also The Game.” It was a truly epic hack. This post has more information on how it happened, and Urlesque has information on its, erm, cultural significance.

TIME is running its online poll once again this year, but it’s mostly been drama-free. There’s a more international crowd than one might expect: The top five are currently Iranian opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Chinese author and racecar driver Han Han, Korean figure skater Kim Yu-Na, noted Lady Gaga Lady Gaga, and — of course — Rain. But unless some diehard Nathan Myhrvold fan is trying to slip his name in there, probably no haxxing.

So: the folks at TIME have made a video retrospective of last year’s moot hack.

4chan admin, evil genius and TEDTalk deliverer moot shakes hands with FourSquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai. Both are festooned with the coveted Gold Badges.

(via Geekosystem roving correspondent and SXSW Interactive presenter Rachel Sklar.)