Anonymous: Cyberspace Meets Meatspace
The Internet has been rife with skirmishes recently. And the battles have run the gamut, from the physical (those mysteriously slashed cables in Middle Eastern seas) to the theoretical (proposed Net Neutrality legislation on Capitol Hill) to the political (viral presidential propaganda). But the most significant example of a cyberspace movement crossing into meatspace was the digitally organized protest known as “Project Chanology” that the group Anonymous put on in front of Scientology churches all over the wired world.
It was just a few months ago that Anonymous was little more than a poorly understood online group of hacktivists. Then the Church of Scientology tried to force web sites to take down a video starring Scientology celebrity spokesperson Tom Cruise. Anonymous initially reacted with a petty distributed denial-of-service attack on Scientology’s official web site, but it wasn’t long before the group issued a digital manifesto promising the dismantling of Scientology altogether. Then last week, Anonymous took to the streets, organizing physical protests in front of Scientology Churches all over the world.
Some six months ago, when Anonymous first started making ripples on YouTube (embedded above), the group came off as something more akin to Palahniuk’s subconscious than Thoreau’s conscientious objection. As it evolved, Anonymous began to make rules governing both its operations and its philosophy, in both the digital and real worlds. Using social media, it evolved toward an actionable cause that galvanized thousands.
Things changed for Anonymous when the group, which mainstream media, specifically Fox News, called “hackers on steroids,” decided to use sandwich boards as well as circuit boards. The battle against Scientology’s questionable methods started with a message to the organization of Scientology. Then there was a plea to the individuals within Scientology. But it was Anonymous’ call to action that pushed the group beyond the category mere Internet blowhard.
The last video issued before the day of action (embedded below) lays out 22 rules of protesting that everyone should know before raging against the machine. Anonymous clearly includes members with protesting experience and a commitment to defending freedom of speech through civil disobedience. The video not only connects the virtual and physical, but New Age protest tools to the methods used in the ’50s and ’60s.
The final rule writes web-savvy tactics into the organization’s very fiber. Anonymous knows that history is no longer written by just the victor. In the digital world everyone is a historian, a pundit and a reporter, recording their world online.
Finally, Rule #22: Document the demonstration. Videos and pictures of the event may be used to corroborate your side of the story if law enforcement get involved. Furthermore, posting images and videos of your heroic actions all over the internet is bound to generate win, exhorting other Anonymous to follow your glorious example.
Anonymous succeeded in controlling a huge amount of the coverage of its protest. Scientology has been largely quiet throughout this process, save for issuing a statement dismissing the group as “cyberterrorists” perpetrating “hate crimes” and accusing Anonymous of suppressing free speech.
More tangible than the HD-DVD/Digg upheaval and more immediate than Ron Paul’s fervent online following, Project Chanology lent real civic strength to the Internet. Anonymous set a very specific goal with this protest and met it — in front of hundreds of cameras all over the world. In a way, the group is defining what digital civil disobedience looks like. We’ll see what kind of showing its masked members make during its next “call to action” during the ides of March.
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Check this Out http://www.scientology-victims-testimonies.com
Geek Entertainment TV did a piece on this just last week…http://www.geekentertainment.tv/
Please feel free to join us on March 15 at your nearest Church of Scientology center to peacefully protest the fraud and abuses of the CoS, as well as to protect the right of free speech from religious oppression and intimidation tactics.
xenu.net
Thank you for the article and the information.
Here’s a link to our serious coverage of the events in San Francisco, including an enlightening bit from Lawrence Wollersheim, an ex-Scientologist whose famous court cases shined a bit of light on some of Scientology’s tactics.
http://www.geekentertainment.tv/2008/02/11/anonymous-vs-scientology/
This is sort of correct. With the exception of what Anonymous is.
Yes, there is a movement calling itself ‘Anonymous’ against Scientology, and yes some hackers call themselves ‘Anonymous’, however, it has it’s roots in something much simpler.
Anonymous is not the philosophical drivel that got posted on Youtube. It is in fact, all of us. Anyone who has ever made a post on the internet that didn’t identify themselves is ‘Anonymous’.
It’s representative of what we say and do when we can’t be identified. Some good, some bad, it’s an all inclusive mirror of humanity in the simplest sense. It’s a way to say something without accountability or recognition.
Anonymous is not a group, it’s got no leader, it’s got no message, no moral code, no ethics. It’s just a faceless mass of both popular and minority opinion.
People just aren’t getting that. Yes, these people are -part- of Anonymous, but all of us are included. It is literally something everyone on the internet is a part of, whether they realize it or not.
This is what News organizations and Scientology aren’t getting. There is no real Anonymous, it’s not a real group, there are no secret meetings, no terrorist acts, or anything that can be ascribed to them as a whole. Those sorts of things do happen, but they are not representative of Anonymous as a whole. Nothing really is. It doesn’t exist, never has, it’s just a label for an unidentified individual or group doing something on the net.
There is no enemy to fight in regard to Anonymous. It’s nothing more than a collective of faceless unidentified opinions, often conflicting with each other in both content and philosophy.
It is both everything and nothing, humanity without a face.
‘We do not forgive, we do not forget, expect us.’
This is nothing more than a statement of the nature of humanity. Anonymous is often crude, rude, unruly and sometimes noble. It is sick and twisted, and honorable and just. It’s a reflection of human honesty, human prejudice, and human arrogance.
It is, quite simply, all of us. Fighting the group of Anonymous is swinging at our own shadow. In the end, it will just wear us out and we’ll just end up beating ourselves up.
You cannot destroy Anonymous, because it does not exist to be destroyed. It simply is, it’s in all of us, it’s what you really think and would say if you knew no one would know you said it.
I know it sounds fairly philosophical, but it’s really not. That’s literally what Anonymous really is. It’s just a collection of statements and opinions posted on the internet without identification. No more, and no less.
Fighting against it is fighting against people’s thoughts, both profound, and trivial.
It’s a deceptively simple concept, and the CoS doesn’t realize it’s fighting nothing. It’s labeled both no one and everyone as an ‘SP’ and is applying ‘Fair Game’ to both no one and everyone without knowing it.
It’s deliciously ironic. They don’t realize what they are doing here. It’s a mind game made to make Scientology shoot itself in the foot, and it’s working.