  urlLink The New York Times > International > Asia Pacific > Japanese Find a Forum to Vent Most-Secret Feelings : "In a society in which subtlety is prized above all, face-to-face confrontation is avoided, insults can be leveled with verbal nuances and hidden meanings are found everywhere, there is one place where the Japanese go to bare their souls and engage in verbal combat: Channel 2.
It is Japan's largest Internet bulletin board - the place where disgruntled employees leak information about their companies, journalists include tidbits they cannot get into the mainstream news media and the average salaryman attacks with ferocity and language unacceptable in daily life.
It is also the place where gays come out in a society in which they mostly remain in the closet, where users freely broach taboo subjects, or where people go to the heart of the matter and ask, 'What's for dinner? ' About 5.4 million people come to Channel 2 each month (http://www.2ch.net), many of them several times a day. Founded in 1999, 'ni-channeru,' as it is called here, has become part of Japan's everyday culture as no other Web site has..." 
