That’s close to what happened in 2024 tbh. Sites like Reddit, Instagram, and YouTube were heavily botted and full of bad faith actors to promote misinformation. Since there are no guardrails like BlueSky has for instance, the bots could show up early to every thread/post/video to set the narrative and then they’d be the last to reply before threads closed to get the final word in.
I believe the future depends on more Federated sites to become mainstream and for Federated sites to adopt the same moderation mechanisms used by BlueSky.
I agree, I actually have been wanting a 4chan type replacement for a while and I believe there are enough tools out there with a federated space for it to be possible. 4chan’s method of communication in the best of times is fun and spurs some interesting conversations, when it’s done right. I think we all know what 4chan does wrong, mostly its lack of any noticeable moderation or automods.
If it had the same type of moderation tools that say BlueSky had though, where things like misinformation, slurs, etc. are removed/hidden as the default setting for users. Then this would go a long ways to building a kinder community/discussion space.