Anon, a hacking group similar to Lulzsec and at one point aligned with them has announced an attack on Facebook on November 5th. They claim to be opposing Facebook company policies including but not limited to the sale of private data and the preservation of data even after an account is supposedly deleted.
It appears that people are beginning to realize that the internet although intangible is as much of a real domain as a public park. I suppose how I perceive it as protesting in a public park versus blocking traffic and vandalizing it. These groups believe that by positing images or attacking websites and taking them down they are conveying a message to the users of the websites. Even though many people understand this, a significant number if not most perceive it as simple vandalism: a destructive force that is more criminal than political.
Fortunately for Facebook, the operation seems to have been called off. Anon has disowned the operation, claiming that it was a byproduct of people's speculation from outside of the organization. However this raises a greater question: will more people be inspired to use the internet as a mean of conveying political opinion even if it means attacking someone through the internet?
Sources: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/faster-forward/post/anonymous-says-it-will-take-down-facebook-on-nov-5/2011/08/09/gIQAfWMX6I_blog.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2011/08/11/why-the-anonymous-facebook-plot-was-a-dud/2/
I don't doubt that some members of Anon are in it for the politics. However, as they are anonymous by name, who would know the true intent? Besides, groups can rarely be spoken of honestly as a whole.
ReplyDeleteFunctionality and form are in a serious conflict here. I don't believe a group like Anon whose members have nothing at stake in other members could ever accomplish anything but anarchy. The necessity of anonymity is clear, yet the forced disorganization suggests Anon's fall from noble protests is coming soon. Either the end of the group or chaos is on the way.
Some interesting posts. I hadn’t known about the threat to Facebook.
ReplyDeleteIn your general topic on “activism” you have focused on uses of the internet to harass and disrupt. As Alise points out, these may not be the people we think of as “activists” but more like pranksters or vandals. In the larger sense when you talk about activism on the internet, I think of groups like MoveOn that use it for organizing, or witness.org who use it to provide information from the public that may go against their government. It would be interesting to get a sense of this broader range.
If you want to focus it on disruptive activism, that is also an interesting topic, with lots of examples and discussions. It includes things like Wikileaks that don’t try to disrupt other people’s websites, but to disrupt their functioning through Internet information.
Lots to explore!
--t