Two ongoing debates characterize Anonymous: first, the extent to which illegal tactics like hacking and doxing should be used in service of a cause and second, the degree to which members can or should be identified, even pseudonymously. With the move onto IRC, users could remain anonymous while using consistent pseudonymous handles. Imageboards like 4chan offer total ephemeral anonymity, making it difficult to verify even if multiple posts are by the same person. This shift, according to Coleman, was necessary for real organization. Project Chanology was the first move into a more sophisticated “hacktivism” that more or less left the chans behind. But in 2008, after the Church of Scientology attempted to remove from the Web all instances of an infamous Tom Cruise video through copyright violation claims and other means, enough Anonymous denizens felt sufficiently offended to organize a long-term campaign against Scientology, more or less moving off of the chaotic chans and onto IRC channels. At its worst, early Anonymous action took the form of puerile antics like logging onto Finnish Second Life clone Habbo Hotel and forming swastikas to block people’s paths. The idea of Anonymous had been around since at least 2003, resulting in disorganized “raids” against the sites of people like white nationalist Hal Turner. Coleman told me that “Anonymous has a real susceptibility to mutation.” From today’s vantage, the origins of Anonymous on imageboards like the notorious 4chan (whose /b/ board has been called “the asshole of the Internet”) looks unlikely and perverse. The search for lulz takes many different forms, some productive and some malignant. To watch from shore the troubles of another But it is too simple and too easy to condemn Anonymous outright.Ī joy it is, when the strong winds of storm Anonymous is so vague and ill-defined that it can be all of these things, and you’d need to have future vision and God’s calculator to figure out whether the net is positive or negative. Journalist Adrian Chen furiously rebuked them Thursday in the Nation, declaring them to be posers wearing the clothes of techno-liberation while ineptly sabotaging the progressive causes they claim to support. Their hacktivism has frequently perplexed the media, generating both fascination and outrage. They are capable of noble (if illegal) gestures, like hacking the Westboro Baptist Church and taking down wretched revenge porn king Hunter Moore’s wretched revenge porn site, but also more dubious actions like mass doxings of police officers. They say they support civil liberties, the rights of the oppressed against the powerful, and the right to dissent. Its members are diverse in age, race, and sexual orientation, but predominantly male. What the collective does beyond that can be difficult to sum up, since it has been in constant flux since its creation. The first association most people have with Anonymous is the Guy Fawkes mask that serves as its unofficial logo-that is, Anonymous is fundamentally about being, well, anonymous. The loose group that goes under the umbrella name Anonymous has made that its explicit goal, with shifting, unpredictable results. Online, however, it’s become much easier to be involved in all of those things while still living unknown-anonymously. “Live unknown,” says Epicurus, suggesting one abandon politics, power, and social life to achieve peace of mind.