I think I'd rather be hauled off to prison than be the target of such ire.

Lol.. you've clearly never been to jail, much less prison.

I'm a middle class male.

If 4chan gets pissed off at me, my available recourse involves scouring all data traces I've made across the Internet and then hoping I did it fast enough before the pain train begins. At best, I could post some kind of apology or concession and pray they lose interest.

If the government wanted to put me in jail, my available recourse starts with a reasonably well documented legal system interested in fairly representing and judging me and extends all the way to, well... asking 4chan for help.

Maybe if I were black or female or gay, I'd prefer 4chan's treatment, but only maybe.

I'd say that the best recourse to a 4chan character assassination is to simply stop using the reddit/facebook/4chan for a week or two.

I think you're imagining that 4chan would stop with my internet presence. That's not historically true.

You've clearly never been on the receiving end of 4Chan.