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Padawan Learner

©The Boston Globe
I posted a comment to this article, including this link to Wikipedia's 'Anonymous (Group)' entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)Florida: Protests again target Church of Scientology
Clearwater - Who are these masked men who've taken up the cause of taking down the Church of Scientology?
The church says they're cyber-terrorists who've expanded their protest beyond the World Wide Web to streets all over the world.
"We are not terrorists, we are peaceful demonstrators," insisted one protester, who declined to give his name. "Not a single person got arrested during the entire worldwide protest -- nothing. But three Scientologists got arrested this last time."
The war of words has escalated between the group that calls themselves Anonymous and the Church of Scientology since the first protest in February.
I was unable to add another comment to the bottom of the article but I would like to call attention to the 'Anonymous' trend as it seems to overlap a few themes that are familiar to SOTT, including the symbols of Guy Fawkes and V for Vendetta.
Wikipedia describes 'Anonymous':
Although I am aware of the 'cult popularity' of imageboards and the use of inside jokes, memes and wordsalad-like vernacular on sites like 4chan, the definition provided by Wikipedia seems to bleed into the greater Internet community, including users of news sites (like Digg, Wired, slashdot, etc), social networking sites (like Facebook) and digital communication tools (like YouTube). Interesting how the actions of a small group of anonymous internet posters blows up into something like 'collateral association' (for the lack of a better term).The self-styled Anonymous ... are the multitude of visitors to various websites and forums. The name "Anonymous" is taken from the anonymity under which users post images and comments. It is generally considered as a blanket term – not tied to any monolithic group – for members of the Internet culture.
... Anonymous lacks a visible hierarchical structure or leaders, instead relying on individuals to contribute to the group on their own.
... Anonymous is composed of users of 4chan [edit: http://www.4chan.org] and other imageboards, who maintain several wikis and Internet Relay Chat networks to overcome the limitations of imageboards. A "loose coalition of Internet denizens", the group is "banded together" by the Internet, through sites such as Slashdot and YouTube. Social networking services, such as Facebook, are used for the creation of groups which reach out to people to mobilize in real-world protests. Anonymous has no leader or controlling party, and relies on the collective power of its individual members acting in such a way that the net effect benefits the group.
The 'Anonymous' approach to collective agenda and activism is elaborated in a blog called "MediaShift Idea Lab" hosted by PBS. Dan Schultz, blogger and not a journalist, posted "Anonymous vs. Scientology: A Case Study of Digital Media". In this blog, he describes the rise of interest in activism in the 'loose coalition of Internet denizens' and he comments on how 'Anonymous' changed their strategy from 'illegal' harassment to legal action:
In the same blog, on March 1st, Dan Schultz elaborated on the article above with his post, "Community Organization with Digital Tools"... How did a fairly small group of completely anonymous individuals manage to generate several million views worth of buzz on the internet? And finally, how did they actually bridge the gap and apply that buzz into real, physical world protests? Thinking about it may help inspire thoughts about where digital media is now, where it can go, and what would improve it.
Although there were plenty of things that could have gone better, here are some components that I think had a lot to do with how Anonymous was able to bring their movement to where it is today:
1. Community-driven issues. Anonymous was a previously established community (albeit a non-traditional one) and its members were able to identify this issue as one that they had a passion for. Compare a community issue to one that is loosely backed by otherwise unrelated individuals and you will see why this matters.
2. Effective targeted digital communication tools. User media sites allow for quick information dissemination to exactly the type of people that Anonymous wanted reach - active members of The Internet community. Those sites let others join in by participating in the conversation, passing the word along, or simply learning more on their own/taking some sort of personal action. Public wikis and forums also helped by supporting coordination and made it possible for anyone to propose and organize action.
3. Tacit understanding of those tools and their potential. Anonymous was familiar with the existing digital media infrastructure (Digg, YouTube, community forums, etc.) and could use it effectively to get their message out.
4. Attention and responsiveness to community feedback. Organizers and communicators adapted and listened to their audience; feedback shaped the movement. You can see a clear shift in Anonymous' direction in response to audience members' comments late January. Had Anonymous simply continued on as it began (i.e. through illegal harassment), it is unlikely that the group would have gained much/any worldwide support and I definitely wouldn't be writing this post right now.
5. Availability of information (to enable critical analysis). There is a lot of content from all perspectives scattered around the internet, so curious parties could look into things on their own using the glories of Google. I'm sure some people may have joined in without checking other sources, but more cautious media consumers had the resources needed to develop personal opinions before getting involved. ...
Both these article by Dan Schultz make for an interesting read on the topics of collective agenda and activism with the support of digital communication tools such as messageboards, imageboards, blogs and streaming media/content sites like YouTube (which is an invaluable tool for networking and informing IMO).... So how does community organization using digital systems (I.S. Activism) compare to organization through more traditional means? Here is a far from comprehensive list; hopefully it gives some food for thought.
Lower barrier to entry - it is a lot easier for an interested party to visit a web site than it is for them to travel to a meeting; since online involvement is less costly, people who have access to the community system are more likely to learn more about an issue and potentially get involved.
Less commitment - these days digital has tended to mean impersonal. That may not always be the case, but whenever it is people won't have as many external/social pressures to stick around. It also suggests that comments and actions are more genuine.
More efficient - Well implemented information systems help create knowledge. In this case help comes via lowered individual lookup costs, computer driven collective intelligence, and more minds solving more problems in a naturally coordinated format.
Less controlled - If the system is democratic (note the "if") then community members, rather than community leaders, ultimately control the conversations and decide what issues are most important. Unfortunately, depending on the level of community openness, this means that it may be easier for malicious contributors to cause problems.
Those bullet points are all well and good, but I want to call out the most important point of all: I.S. activism relies 100% on communication. If the channels of communication are clogged with irrelevant noise, if the overall direction is derailed into uselessness, or if the system itself is compromised in some other way, the movement dies. Basically, if people rely on a system to communicate and organize, then that system had better work well. ...
To bring the focus back to WHY aspect of 'Anonymous' and not the HOW:
Protesters in the streets wearing Guy Fawkes masks, as seen originally in the awesome movie V for Vendetta, is very engaging... for myself and many other people who wish for activism to work somehow and at some point very soon. However, like SOTT poster, Iconoclast, commented in Dozens of masked protesters blast Scientology church (Feb. 08)
It is very peculiar that people don these masks to protest the C.o.S. and not... oh... the Federal Reserve? I.R.S.?Iconoclast said:"i somehow i wish people would protest with 'V for Vendetta' masks - but not against something as pointless as scientology!"
I would think that the nature of these protests (the original in February and the last a few days ago) are more like glorified pranks. Remember "flash mobs"? Here's the Wikipedia entry for "Flash Mobs"
From looking around at various websites, a lot of 'Anonymous' protesters make remarks about the crimes of the Church of Scientology and they have created a lot of promotional flyers and content to either inform, indoctrinate or just simply entertain other Internet denizens - like this YouTube video The Church of Scientology disapproves, of course, and released this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zQwmBqO6UY
So, now, efforts to prank monolithic, secretive establishments across the world are surfacing as "activism". I have no idea how far it will go, but in the meantime, one American legislator has the bright idea to do away with anonymous commenting across the board! You can guess it is not that popular of an idea - especially with 'Anonymous' :P - but that may not stop it from becoming a law after all. Lawmaker: Criminalize Anonymous Internet Posts
Kentucky Rep. Tim Couch has filed a bill aimed at making anonymous commenting on Web sites illegal.
"The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site," according to press reports. "Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted."
A Web site owner would have to pay a fine if someone posted anonymously on their site, if the bill were to become law. A first-offense fine would be five-hundred dollars. The Web site owner would have to pay one-thousand dollars for each offense after that.
Couch said he hopes to cut down online bullying.