Alright, we all know that Anonymous is retarded hacking important sites and whatnot, but now they're targetting facebook. Normally I wouldn't care, and I'd actually like having the freedom of not dealing with immature "ohmygodshedidNOT" bullshit and comments that are CLEARLY directed at other people. However, since Anonymous is now targetting a social site, they're going to have the public against them. They're going to have the public against anonymity. This raises several questions in my mind, the biggest of which is "why?", followed shortly after by "what do they want to get out of this?".

A cynical person would see this as a government-funded organization that seeks to improve the government's position on taking down internet anonymity. If a few government organizations are targeted, not too many people care. I personally didn't, either. Woohoo, let the kids blow off some steam rather than some actual damaging actions. Now, however, they'll have a large majority, if not total, attention of the biggest possible audience. They'll be able to do what they want and take down facebook, and have millions against it. And once it's over, the government (any one that wants to) will be able to pass laws restricting internet anonymity, if not eliminating it. At that point, they've served their purpose; they'll either disband, or they'll get arrested and brought to "justice".

Now, most sane other people look at this and see a bunch of teens, maybe up to mid 20's, that got together and decided to do it for fun. They want to see what they can get away with, without getting caught. They find justification, if they don't totally make it up, and don't plan on having to answer for their actions. They'll stop when they get caught, get tired of it, or both, never when someone or something tells or forces them to.

What I want from you, SEN, is to tell me what you think.



Now, on to the attack on Facebook itself: They slander the date by presenting that information as reasoning, and by associating what they're doing with actual treason.

That said, Anonymous's targets are typically anti-liberal or corrupt groups, and sometimes they do inane acts such as posting porn on youtube. Throughout it all the group is dedicated to protecting an extremely liberal interpretation of civil rights.

In 2009, they supported the Iranian protests where foul play was suspected. They also took part in the 2011 Libyan protests. For the most part, their stance is put best in their press releases:


Their attack on facebook is not surprising, facebook has been selling information that should be kept private. Furthermore, this information is accessible regardless of privacy settings. And deleting your account does not actually wipe away your information. It's still kept and archived on their servers.

This is in violation of Anonymous's prime directive: protect civil liberties. It's no surprise they're targeting facebook.

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To call them a bunch of teens or mid-20 guys is laughable. They're not trolling or just having fun, what's behind their cause is a true philosophy and dream. It's idealism at its finest. They believe what they are doing is truly the right thing to do, and refuse to let petty laws stop them. Simply arresting them only livens their cause, since it provides martyrs who were silenced by the authorities whom they regard as truly evil.

It's a philosophy, and you can't fight philosophy with guns and ammunition, nor with prisons and jails. By reacting to them as we are, we're only proving how infantile and naive our species truly is.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Aug 10 2011, 5:21 am by Sacrieur.

If you read that article, it talks about how Facebook isn't selling any information, and information isn't accessed from third-parties without permission from the user.

I guess I should stop using the word "pirate" or "torrent" on facebook.

What? I don't...

Sac, that's great and all, but you may miss the point: it's fighting a battle it will never win, because it's fighting it. Fighting as an anonymous group that the government apparently doesn't care enough to stop, whether it's because it's not a problem or it's actively pushing some goal(s) the government wants, is doomed to bring reduced freedoms. If it was true idealism, Anonymous wouldn't be fighting as an anonymous group, but since what it's doing is illegal, they have to. It's a bitch. I'm not criticizing the legality of its actions, I'm criticizing the logic. Its prime directive is to protect civil liberties. It plan on doing that through actions that having no marked appearance in the laws, to date, and by methods that will only limit the very thing it seek to protect.

That outdated (yes, it says so in the tags) link was first posted late February. It was updated later (at most 3 days) with:

Please read your own articles in their entirety. Especially the last sentence. But I gotta thank you for posting evidence that Anonymous is doing their song and dance for reasons that were valid just over 8 months prior to their attack actually occurring. Frees up some time for me.

Finally, your attitude is "laughable". Seriously, "infantile and naive" species? You apparently don't see the inescapable conclusion of Anonymous's actions. Governments will continue to ignore it, or even actively make laws to remove internet anonymity. With actions like these, Government only limits freedoms, rarely (if ever) granting them.

Right, and then a couple sentences later it says:

And then finally:

And as we can see from Facebook now (as opposed to months ago when this was written), they held up their side.

I still don't get why they have that e-mail address searcher thing.

Y'know the thing where you type in your e-mail and password and they search through your contacts.

Doesn't sound like good policy to me.

I've used that a couple times in the past and nothing bad came from it.

I'd say something like "BUT THEY CAN READ YOUR MAIL THEN!" but uh.. that's kinda old news. Don't companies like Google have all of your information publicized or sold?

Still the less companies fingering through my data the happier I am.

I was sort of paranoid about that when I first used it, but then I decided to believe the disclaimer that says your email and password information aren't saved anywhere after the one-time use to access the address book.

As for the topic at hand, I was behind Anonymous when they started messing with Scientology, but began to lose faith as I saw more an more people with Guy Fawkes masks being stupid. Its hard to believe a message from a group that has no leader or organization when any idiot can be a representative of it and do so in an incredibly poor fashion. I'd love to believe that what they want to accomplish is good and that they are the right group to attempt to make change, but I can't wholeheartedly believe that. So now they want to go after Facebook for things that Facebook says it isn't doing. I'm inclined to believe Facebook.

The one thing I can say to back up Facebook in this case is that no one is forcing anyone to use Facebook. If you don't like the way Facebook runs things, then don't use Facebook. They don't need to change anything to cater to us. The website is not some publicly owned social service that everyone is entitled to. Its silly to think that we're so self-righteous to assume that a company should change what they're doing because we don't like it. We don't even pay to use Facebook.

What Anonymous thinks they look like:


What Anonymous is perceived as by the public:


What Anonymous actually looks like:


It's nothing to fear. They'll just put a few ponies there and then leave. Although I'm going to find it fucking hilarious if they actually do something so I can see the reactions of everyone.

I am called Jared Turkmenistan on Facebook. I live in Guatemala and have 78 children. I am 103 years old and work at NASA.

Anyone who EVER fills out there real information on the t'interwebs EVER is just an idiot. And deserves to have their privacy violated.

The only thing that concerns me about the concept of Anonymous is that it doesn't really define who it can't include (within it's, uh, "rules" I guess). Think about that for a bit.

And don't even get me STARTED on the people who don't connect through a proxy EVERY time they surf the web.

I was planning on deleting my Facebook and switching over to Google+, anyway. If my information gets permanently deleted, hurray for me.

People who revealed their identity...?

In college, if you don't have a facebook account, it's depriving yourself of a very easy way to interact with people.

I joined back when it was limited to only people with a valid college email. And it was good. Then all this new stuff started popping up. I don't have a problem having my real information out there right now, but I am deathly afraid of anyone linking my real self to my anonymous self. That's why I am hesitant at putting a picture of my face online. My picture is already in multiple places over the internet, and I have only posted maybe 2-3 pictures of myself. The rest were posted by people who know me.

As people have said before, anon will get bored. And trying to take down fb is like trying to ddos google.

This is nothing new that facebook has been giving out our information, the military could look into your profile regardless of your privacy settings because idiots were putting up information they were told not to.

Anyways, I just want to see what's up and laugh when it happens.

The government tracks your every step on certain sites as-is. For example, there are sites on how to make bombs. Yes, it's allowed to be on the internet, and visited, by free speech. But if you continue to go on sites like that, including terrorist sites, you'll be followed. They'll want to know why you're looking at stuff like that.

Personally, I don't care if someone finds out who I am in real life. Most of you know my real name, and/or could find me through my pictures fairly easily. I don't have anything to hide, nor anything to be afraid of. It's funny how the anonymity gives people such a fright when they think about getting rid of it. It's almost like they've got something they don't want other people to know about them. I don't hide behind a proxy, and I provided my real information (to facebook, at least), because I have nothing to be ashamed of.

Except that one picture, remember devlin?

Is this really happening on November 5th? I'll be watching this with a cake in front of me and a party hat on my head if you get what I mean

I think DevliN said it pretty well; it was the user's choice to join Facebook and no one is forced by anyone. If you see someone post a picture of you that you don't like, you have an option to remove it anyways.