Hiroyuki Nishimura

is a Japanese internet entrepreneur. He founded the message board 2channel, and is the owner of 4chan. He is often known by his given name, , both as a pen name and as a username. In May 1999, he opened 2channel while he was studying at the University of Central Arkansas. In June 2001, he founded Irregulars and Partners KK with Ichirō Yamamoto, which was involved in 2channel's management, but later left.

He graduated with a degree in psychology from Chuo University in 2000.

In January 2007, Nishimura was an advisor to Skip-Up KK, CEO of Tokyo Plus KK, and a director of Niwango, the company that launched Nico Nico Douga. He left his role at Niwango in February 2013.

2channel

During 2008, 2ch generated an annual revenue upwards of ¥100 million for Nishimura. and this event resulted in a series of lawsuits against the website. Around the same time, the anti-matome movement took place throughout 2channel, a controversial community development involving users protesting against which specialize in summarizing 2channel threads, which were taking away site traffic. while Nishimura claimed that he had in fact paid everything owed and that the domain transfer was an illegal domain hijacking. In response, Nishimura created his own clone of 2channel at ,

4chan

On 21 September 2015, he bought the website 4chan from Christopher Poole.

Lawsuits As defendant

Nishimura has lost a number of libel lawsuits which have led to him being assessed a considerable amount in penalties. In 2008, he told Wired he has no intention of paying, saying, "If the verdict mandates deleting things, I'll do it," but, "I just haven't complied with demands to pay money. Would a cell phone carrier feel responsible when somebody receives a threatening phone call?" Through the Japan Patent Office, Nishimura owns the trademark "2channel", though the WIPO refused to intervene on his behalf on account of that, suggesting the parties go to court instead as it was not, in its view, a case of "cybersquatting" but rather a "business dispute".

Footnotes