This documentary about the rise in ‘Hactivism’ through the online group ‘Anonymous’ was very eye-opening. As I watched the film, I realised that I had heard some of the attacks that they made on corporations (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Sony) but at the time remember thinking that they were in the wrong as it was presented in the media. I gained a better understanding of why these individuals chose to use the internet as a form of protest and think that their actions demonstrate the amazing power of communities formed on the internet.

How does this documentary alter your understanding of Internet?

While I do think the Internet is a democratic place in which people voice their opinions quite freely, I was a bit surprised that it had such a power to gather people in a community to attack an organisation. It’s always been quite apparent that people can form communities based on causes they are interested in and form physical protests on the streets, but how Anonymous was able to take down websites and ‘troll’ organisations really is remarkable.

How is social media used to create a community of people who share a similar interest and politics?

In this case, the sites ‘4chan’ and ‘/b/’ already had communities based on weird and sometimes grotesque things available on the internet, creating the memes that we have all come to know. They all posted anonymously allowing them the freedom to be whoever they wanted on the internet, and not feeling ashamed of their interests. These sites allowed like-minded people to share their common interests when they may not have been able to find that in the real world. The idea of ‘Anonymous’ then came out of the idea of what if all of the people posting on these sites was actually just one person? The Anonymous group then went on to prank people and websites targeting groups whose priorities didn’t sit well with the Anonymous pranksters. When Hal Turner a neo-Nazi attacked someone on ‘4chan’, Anonymous protected their own and shut down Turner’s ability to voice his racism to the public. This then began a wave of online attacks and physical protests for different causes by the Anonymous group. The one thing they had in common was the belief that the internet shouldn’t be censored and went after organisations and even governments who denied the public this right.

What ideas does this documentary raise in regards to designing an event that asks people to participate and become part of a community?

The documentary raises the idea that people with common interests will want to participate in events that they believe strongly about, or because they wish to meet other members of the community (which occurred for Anonymous members during the Scientology protests). It also brings up the idea that a community can be formed under one pretense which may be quite informal, but may change its attention to a more serious cause/idea. It illustrates that if you can create a community of like-minded individuals with the same beliefs, you can create a group where you speak as one, rather than hearing individual voices. While there were leaders of Anonymous, the members all lead causes in their own way and the voices heard was one of the people and not of leaders of the group, which goes back to the idea of flash mobs as needing to be organised by a leader, but the members don’t look to a leader and have one common goal/cause. Anonymous used a video which asked its members to act as a part of a common mission, which could be a tool used for our own event.