![]() ![]() "Unnecessarily harassing people? I would class that as a bad thing. "Has Anonymous done good for the world? In some cases, yes," Olson told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, citing Anonymous' support of pro-democracy demonstrators in the Middle East. Parmy Olson, a journalist who wrote a 415-page book on Anonymous in 2012, stated at the time that even the group's supporters should consider its legacy a mixed bag. In 2012, the National Security Agency deemed Anonymous a threat to national security. Many believe the group's vigilante tactics are extreme and potentially dangerous. "You want action now, you want justice now, and I think groups like Anonymous and hacktivists give people that immediate satisfaction," Fowler said.īut Anonymous definitely has critics. Jeremiah Fowler, a co-founder of the cybersecurity company Security Discovery, told CNBC last week that Anonymous' supporters likely view the group as somewhat of a "cyber Robin Hood," targeting powerful governments and corporations in the name of popular causes. Today, millions of people follow Anonymous-affiliated social media accounts. In 2012, Time magazine named Anonymous one of the world's 100 Most Influential People. Anonymous also claimed responsibility for a September hack of web-hosting company Epik, which leaked more than 150 gigabytes of data on far-right groups like QAnon and the Proud Boys. The collective's activities trailed off after some of those arrests, but resurfaced last year when Anonymous claimed responsibility for hacks targeting the Republican Party in Texas, in protest of the state's controversial abortion law. Barrett Brown, a journalist and self-professed Anonymous spokesperson, served more than four years in prison after a 2012 arrest on charges related to cyberattacks and threatening a federal officer. ISIS, following the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks.Īuthorities around the world have arrested dozens of hackers with alleged ties to Anonymous, including at least 14 people charged with hacking PayPal in 2011.government websites in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries in the Middle East and Africa as part of the 2011 Arab Spring pro-democracy protests.PayPal, after the online payments platform stopped allowing donations to WikiLeaks and its controversial founder, Julian Assange.Department of Justice and FBI, after federal authorities shut down file-sharing website in 2012. the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), after those organizations worked to stop pirating websites from sharing copyrighted music and movies. ![]() ![]() Since "Project Chanology," Anonymous members have targeted a long list of parties, including: Since the group is decentralized, it has no real structure or hierarchy - so there's often much internal debate about which ideas or causes to support.Ī pinned 2019 tweet on the Twitter account – which, again, claims not to speak for the collective as a whole – describes Anonymous members as "working class people seeking a better future for humanity." It lists Anonymous' guiding principles as "freedom of information, freedom of speech, accountability for companies and governments, privacy and anonymity for private citizens." Generally, Anonymous opposes governments and corporations that it views as participating in censorship or promoting inequality. ![]()
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