The New Era of Counter Culture - Week 7

They bear the vestments of a well-aged crusade against tyranny - white face, angled black mustache and goatee, rouged cheeks, with arched brows and hollow eyes. The face of one who was made a representative of a revolutionary movement; one that ultimately failed.  The face of everyone, and of no one.  The face of Anonymous.

Anonymous has modernized, reinvented and marketed the term "hacktivist'. First appearing markedly in 2003, Anonymous began as an internet gathering of disenfranchised hackers and bored online community members.  Since then, Anonymous has not only grown in depth and breadth, but also in the amount of fear and trepidation it strikes into the heart of corporations, governments and private organizations around the globe.

Gabriella Coleman, Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University, has become a well-known Anonymous expert.  Trained as an anthropologist, she researches, writes, and teaches on hackers and digital activism.  In her recent series on Internet Governance,  Coleman provides an in-depth analysis of Anonymous.

"Anonymous has been adept at magnifying issues, boosting existing — usually oppositional — movements and converting amorphous discontent into a tangible form, " says Coleman. "They have been remarkably effective, despite lacking the human and financial resources to engage in long term strategic thinking or planning."

Activism as a whole is certainly not a new concept.  Nor is 'extreme activism'.  The 1960's began a breakdown of long-held values and norms within the younger generation. With the founding of the Students for a Democratic Society, sit-ins at Berkeley and the Free Speech Movement also came anti-war movements, Black Activism, burgeoning sexuality, Women's Rights, bombings, drugs, Hippies and Woodstock.

Counterculture itself is defined as a way of life and set of attitudes opposed to the prevailing social norm. It is the next generation, pushing and clawing through the commonplace and accepted, demanding it's voice, demanding change.

Anonymous gives voice to the unspoken and muted. It not only amplifies the cries of the counterculture - it is the counterculture. The modern day Loki - you're never really sure of they are the hero, or the anti-hero, but always a trickster.

Anonymous is well-known for having multiple projects rolling concurrently.  Knows as 'Ops', they been well-known for Ops for the 'Lulz' (laughs) - coordinated pranks, just for the fun of it, but also target hotbed political and religious issues and cases involving attacks on women and children.

In many cases, not only have they drawn well-needed attention to an issue, but in some cases affected its outcome.  Early this year, Anonymous took up the mantle for Rehtaeh Pearsons of Halifax. The seventeen year old girl had been drinking at a party in 2011 and reportedly gang-raped by four classmates who took pictures and posted them online. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated the crime, but said there wasn't enough evidence to charge the boys.

For the next two years she was bullied, tormented and harassed to the point of her family being forced to move from their home. After years of torture, Rehtaeh hung herself in April of this year.

Anonymous was outraged, and released a statement announcing they had identified the four rapists.  They demanded the Nova Scotia Police reopen the case or they would make the names public.

"Our demands are simple: We want the [Nova Scotia Royal Canadian Mounted Police] to take immediate legal action against the individuals in question. We encourage you to act fast. If we were able to locate these boys within 2 hours, it will not be long before someone else finds them," the statement read. With their trademark credo: "We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”

On April 12, the RCMP announced the case was being reopened in light of "new and credible information" that they said did not come from the Internet.

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