The politically motivated assassination of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark in June of this year is yet another example of the growing normalization of political violence in America. The ease with which individuals make flippant remarks about such violence online (celebrating murders or using "edgy" humor to desensitize the public) has contributed to a dangerous cultural shift. In the aftermath of the attack adherents of the right openly praised the assailant for targeting Democratic political figures. Many also made callous and inappropriate comments about the victims, including Representative Hortman and her husband, John and Yvette Hoffman and their 10-year-old daughter—who miraculously survived—and even Gilbert, the family dog, who was killed.
Rhetoric commonly used by anonymous users on imageboard platforms (such as the "4chan") is directly linked to a measurable rise in violence motivated by right-wing extremist ideologies. Given their role in fostering radicalization and promoting harmful content, these platforms warrant serious consideration for regulation—or even permanent shutdown.
Would the murders of Melissa and Mark Hortman, the three victims of the 2023 Jacksonville Dollar General shooting, the ten lives lost in the 2022 Buffalo supermarket massacre, the 23 people killed in the 2019 El Paso attack, and the eleven worshippers murdered in the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting have occurred if the far-right perpetrators didn’t believe they had an online audience to perform for—one that would validate, amplify, or even glorify their actions?
The use of humor plays a key role in desensitizing perpetrators to the brutality of their actions, enabling them to commit increasingly violent acts with little moral restraint. Moreover, the pursuit of notoriety within certain online communities further motivates them to escalate the scale and severity of their attacks.

4chan should be shut down