Anonymous

            One group that I have begun to become more and more interested in is the internet group Anonymous. Anonymous originated on the imageboard 4chan, and represents thousands of members from all over the world. They are involved in many different things, but I am most interested in the ways that they have affected culture and politics.

            The term anonymous came from the fact that the posters to 4chan could post in a way that gave no indication to their identity. After a few hours each post would also be removed from 4chan’s servers. This is primarily done to save on server storage, but lends itself well to preserving an anonymous identity on 4chan’s website. 

A flag that symbolizes anonymous.

            One of Anonymous’ most publicized efforts was known as “Project Chanology,” a protest against the Church of Scientology. When an in house propaganda video was released into the mainstream media, Anonymous picked up on it and began their protests against Scientology. They began several methods of protest against Scientology including denial of service attacks to their website, prank calls, and black page faxes to their fax machines. These protests were not only behind closed doors or online. Anonymous also began to organize in protest on the streets. I find this particularly interesting. Some people will argue that online relationships do not ever amount to anything in the “real world.” 4chan, however, proved that they can indeed organize effective mass protests.

A protest outside of a Church of Scientology.

            One of the most recent actions that Anonymous has undertaken is its defense of the website WikiLeaks. These efforts have been named Operation Avenge Assange and Operation Payback. Their goals have been to attack websites of those that do not support WikiLeaks such as Amazon, Visa, Paypal, and MasterCard. One thing that I found interesting is that these attacks were actually successful. On December 8^th both Visa and MasterCard’s websites were successfully taken down. Anonymous has also worked to help raise awareness for cables that they believe were possibly overlooked by the media. They want to raise awareness for the cables that are especially interesting or that are embarrassing to governments and corporations.

            Anonymous was also involved in the recent revolts in Egypt. Websites that were created with the purpose of keeping Mubarak in office were taken down.

            The successes of these protests are particularly interesting considering 4chan’s nature. Because everyone is Anonymous, there are no real leaders of the group. And information that is posted could not be available even 2 hours later. If 4chan was able to organize these mass protests against the Church of Scientology I wonder what websites with a more organized structure could achieve. These vigilante acts can be dangerous, however. In my opinion, the attacks that I discussed were arguably done to benefit the greater good. Some efforts of Anonymous have not been as heroic. Sometimes 4chan will choose to focus their energy on harassing a single person for some small flaw in their beliefs or in their personality. This can be dangerous for that person and for their family when there is no accountability.