Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos is looking to buy 4chan

Last week's news that 4chan is facing financial ruin has drawn buyout interest from a couple of the internet's most notorious self-styled villains.

The latest suitor is conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who's looking to make a bid for the forum site with the help of an anonymous wealthy backer, the Hollywood Reporter first reported on Saturday.

"As a free-speech fundamentalist and a student of Internet culture, I appreciate how fragile and precious the 4chan ecosystem is and how much it gives to the wider Internet — even if some corners of it, such as /pol/, don't always approve of me very much," Yiannopoulos told the entertainment trade.

"/Pol/" is a reference to 4chan's designated "politically incorrect" board, which -- along with its miscellaneous-topic "/b/" section -- provides much of the basis for the site's public image as an internet cesspool.

4chan owner Hiroyuki Nishimura revealed the company's money troubles early last week in a now-deleted post to the site's users entitled, "Winter is coming."

Not long afterwards, former pharmaceutical exec and internet punching bag Martin Shkreli volunteered on Twitter to buy a stake in the struggling site before ultimately backtracking.

But Yiannopoulos, a hero among the so-called "alt-right" white nationalist movement that 4chan has helped to foster, confirmed to Mashable on Monday that he is still pursuing a deal.

Yiannopoulos previously sold his site, The Kernel, a British 'tabloid'-style digital media outlet on online culture, to the Daily Dot for an undisclosed sum in 2014.

Given his penchant for attention-grabbing stunts, though, it's hard to know how serious Yiannopoulos is about the bid. The Breitbart editor was forced to apologize recently when reports revealed that another of his business ventures -- a scholarship catered exclusively to white men -- failed to pay out any of its promised grants.

And aside from a built-in audience for the pundit's shock-happy brand of political agitation, 4chan has little to offer as a legitimate business.

The site's reputation as a haven for the web's more unsavory subcultures has made it an anathema to most mainstream advertisers and ad networks. The problem is compounded by the fact that much of the site's user base blocks what few ads it is able to show.

An avid Donald Trump supporter and a fixture at conservative college events, Yiannopoulos first made a name for himself on Twitter, where his provocative views on the ills of feminism and "political correctness" earned him a large following among the so-called "Gamergate" movement.

But the social network banned him for life in July after he was accused of directing abuse towards Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones.

"I intend to approach the current owners in the next few days with an offer," Yiannopoulos told the Hollywood Reporter on Saturday. "My philosophy as owner would be very simple: free-speech central, no ifs, no buts."