Nishimura justified this with the comment, "I don't think that's all that different from some dude who opens a convenience store in front of a train station.

"[20] In August 2013, an accidental leak placed the credit card details of thousands of 2channel users into the public domain,[21] 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 "matome blogs" (まとめブログ) which specialize in summarizing 2channel threads, which were taking away site traffic.

[11][24] In response, Nishimura created his own clone of 2channel at 2ch.sc [ja],[11] scraping the contents of the entire 2channel website and updating 2ch.sc as new posts appeared on 2ch.net.

[10][2] The amount paid has not been disclosed, but The New York Times has reported that the sale was made possible with funds provided by three Japanese investors.

[28][3] Users on 4chan refer to him commonly as 'hiro' but also by the ethnic slur "gook moot", or the nickname "Jackie 4chan", "Hiroshima Nagasaki," or simply "hiroshimoot".

[33] Through the Japan Patent Office, Nishimura owns the trademark "2channel",[34] 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".