TimesOnline Article about Anonymous

TimesOnline has an article about the "vanguard of a new internet-fuelled radicalism" that appeared apparently without warning (Anonymous).

It describes how the protests are peaceful ("To the police they are these are the nicest protesters I have ever had the privilege of policing" and fun. It claims that the movement came about (from its channer origin), because "someone suggested that maybe anonymous could be a real person".

It features various descriptions of themselves , such as "We are the hive mind, the anger that leaked from the computer screen" and also have an high idea of what they are doing: "They see themselves as guardians of free speech" and "The cult failed to understand how things arise out of a mass consciousness" ... "the emergence of a new kind of democracy" ... yeah right. What it really is, is a mindless reactions to hate propaganda uncritically swallowed from popular web site on the Internet.

The journalist asks "Why not the Iraq War, nuclear weapons or climate change?" then goes on to say it is because Scientology is something they can change, when the truth is that Iraq, nuclear weapons or climate change does not threatens their freedom to exchange hentai on the Internet whereas they see the CoS as something that does and "had started screwing with the internet".

Of course some of them because true believers in the critical cause: "Initially we harassed them for lulz, but then we realised that they ruin lives. What we do is fun, but with a real cause" and some for some of them Anonymous even gave them back "a sense of purpose that they had lost".

It also claims that "Anonymous has no heroes". This just isn't true. They have "Whise Beard Man"for one, and any old guard anti-cultists that come no the pickets are cheered.

All in all the article is a bit puerile, and doesn't know, for example how these "guardians of free speech" react when Scientologists dare to distribute their own leaflets in response to the protests. The Mooning of that "old lady" reported in June 16 is one example, and here is another where they point with big sign to a "clam" distributing leaflet.

The article, however, has an excellent aside going into the lexicon used by Anonymous.