Anonymous – the radical decentralised online community ostensibly associated with the goal of ‘free speech’ – has caused controversy by issuing a statement sympathising with the UK riots.
It is yet another example of action by the organisation that damages the vital cause of internet freedom. A cause which the organisation claims to defend.
The Anonymous collective has become increasingly prominent. It is most famous for its DDoS attacks which bombard a target webserver with so many requests that it is forced to shut down. The Mastercard and Visa websites have been victims.
Frost readers will know how much I believe in the freedom of the internet and it pains me to see the cause tarnished in this way. It was always wrong for Anonymous to take criminal action. Their actions only give governments further justification to clamp down on the internet further. This is now more the case than ever following their recent statement.
For a supposedly decentralised community, the comments on the UK riots were pretty categorical, worryingly and obviously so. There is an elite within Anonymous that has its own agenda. http://pastebin.com/V00tbr01
The comments can only be interpreted as seeking to incite a revolution, saying: ‘Your politicians mask the extent to which a significant section of society is stuck in an impoverished way of life with little hope for the future.
“It is time to take a stand and realise that solutions will not be found in today’s corrupt political landscape.”
Anonymous called for people to join them in a day of action on October 15th. Although Anonymous made clear it did not condone the violence, it was sympathetic to the rioters. It suggested the riots were as a result of political anger and resentment. Let’s get real here. These riots had no political point (save perhaps the initial riot in Tottenham), and everybody knows that. These riots were about self-gratifying violence and greedy opportunism.
Anonymous will point to the government response to the riots, potentially regulating and controlling social media sites. They will argue this makes it a legitimate target. Undoubtedly, the government is disgracefully jumping on the riots as an excuse for further regulation. No one truly blames twitter for the looting.
That doesn’t mean anarchy is the answer. It doesn’t make it right to incite a revolution. Internet regulation doesn’t have anything to do with anti-cuts protests or unions and it doesn’t mean ‘justice is only for the wealthy’. You have gone beyond your remit, Anonymous.
A revolution might sound romantic, but we only need to look back a few years to see the true horror they bring. They also never end in free speech.
Thanks for your comment Charles. I wish I could write with your natural flow. Why don’t you put your thoughts up as a separate article?
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I think this article’s strong suggestion that Anonymous endorses the riots lacks evidence. I don’t support the linked statement; it displays a tenuous grip on reality, has a weirdly aggressive tone and is frankly a bit silly. It is also simplistic and vague and features some wonderfully overblown phrasing (‘Let your enemies stand forewarned’ is a particular favourite), but it does specifically condemn violence and advocates the use of peaceful protest to point to the social problems, of which many people (including myself although perhaps not including the article’s author) agree the riots were indicative, in order to bring about change. It is therefore hard to agree with the above article when it states that ‘the comments can only be interpreted as seeking to incite a revolution’ and that ‘the comments on the UK riots were pretty categorical, worryingly and obviously so’. I also disagree with his suggestion that the riots ‘had no political point’ as I do believe that, despite the fact that the rioters themselves were not taking a political stand by robbing Currys, there is a lesson to be learned about the distribution of wealth in this country and the issue with dealing with this dissafected, opportunity-less generation
On the other hand, Anonymous has always struck me as a group (albeit a decentralised one) that really just needs to grow up. Clearly there are some very talented people involved, I can’t fathom the kind of skills needed to hack into bank websites for example, but it’s hard not to think that they could be putting their talents to better use. While some of their protest targets are almost admirable (white supremacists etc) the vast majority of Anonymous’ actions are immature and irritating and, as the article suggests, using criminality to protest (regardless of how apparently deserving your target is) is at best fairly pointless and at worst runs the risk of garnering public sympathy for your target and even damaging the legitimacy of legal protests that might otherwise have been effective. Anonymous has always struck me as being about self-promotion for the sake of self-promotion, just adolescent showing off. Their message about free speech (something I think many people would normally agree with) is too vague and wooly to be effective and the concept of anonymous protest has always struck me as redundant.
That brings me to the other comments which are actually what prompted me to comment in the first place. At best they are bizarre and at worst, they are deeply offensive. This talk of revolution is so entirely vague and nonsensical that I can’t really be bothered with it (I get the impression these people think they are living in a graphic novel) and quoting an entire Beatles song and making vague threats (‘inconvenient as that may be for you’ meester Bond…) do nothing to dissuade me of this view.
I agree with the UN’s decision to declare that internet access is a human right but I do not agree with liz rex when she says that ‘everyone should have a free internet and a means to use it, without government or corporate interference, asshole’. This is nonsense and is not what the UN was saying at all. The internet is not above the law and needs to be regulated to prevent criminal activity, actually allowing for freer speech than if it was the free-for-all liz wants. I’d also suggest that you have a lot of ‘freedom of voice’ (some might argue too much) and certainly infinitely more than you would have had 10 or 15 years ago. Also calling someone an ‘asshole’ on the internet is childish and makes it impossible for you to be taken seriously.
Finally (and I’m aware that I’m rambling), freedom_forever’s suggestion that Anonymous’ so-called ‘revolution’ shares similarities with the African American Civil Rights movements would be laughable if it wasn’t so aggravating. How you can sit there behind your computer screen and suggest that a group of childish attention starved computer geeks are worthy of mention in the same breath as a woman like Rosa Parks is beyond me. This is a woman who stood up, showed her face and refused to be bowed down. You are a supporter of a group that by definition is anonymous and wastes time and money taking cowardly pot shots at easy targets while pretending to be a free speech movement. There is no comparison. You are living in a computer game. The thing is I can see what you are saying and I agree that if there had never been any revolutions the world would be worse off but the difference is that concerns about internet privacy and over-zealous regulation (while genuine issues) cannot be compared to the oppression of an entire race of people and any attempt to do so is disgusting. Revolutions are brought about by oppression. You are not being oppressed. Inconvenienced? Maybe. Restricted? Perhaps. Oppressed? Absolutely not.
Whoops, my comment is longer than the article. Someone thinks a lot of their opinions…
There is no internet freedom as it is right now unless you go outside the system. For general public users like me I have no freedom of voice, or freedom to collect with like minded people online. Every site is beholding to their internet provider’s policies. Twitter edits trending topics due to policies as twisted as their algorithms. AND they give customer information to the authorities!
The internet was declared a human right, everyone should have a free internet and a means to use it, without government or corporate interference, asshole.
To get to this stage of the world we are in now, they had to be a revolution. And you want to look back a few years? Okay, Rosa parks. She started one of the biggest if not the biggest revolutions, and look how that turned out? So stop blabbing your crap about how revolutions end in horror because they don’t. I beg you to give me ONE reason why this revolution should be stopped
You say you want a revolution
Well you know
We’d all want to change the world
You tell me that it’s evolution
Well you know
We’d all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don’t you know that you can count OUT!
You say you got a real solution
Well you know
We’d all want to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well you know
We’re all doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you’ll have to wait
Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright
I know one that ended in Free Speech. Your just rousing the rabble. Trust me when I tell you that is high time for a revolution…inconvenient as that may be for you.