The ever-insightful Douglas Rushkoff on the recent dustup between AT&T and intarwebs raconteurs 4chan. The whole thing was a huge misunderstanding, but Rushkoff’s investigative piece – describing three weeks lurking the 4chan boards – is both fascinating and disturbing.

In the three weeks I’ve trolled the site, I didn’t witness anything quite so dramatic—though I suppose the potential is there at any moment. It feels a bit like walking through a bad neighborhood—one where if you break some custom you’re unaware of, you could get hurt. As I perused the porn, the 30-word manifestos against American hegemony (filled with misspellings), the flame wars between gamers about the superiority of one console over the other, I got the overwhelming sense that I had landed in the Internet’s equivalent of the parking lot behind a 7-Eleven. Gamers, geeks, and losers who had nothing better to do than post stills from videogames with obnoxious or occasionally witty inside jokes.