Anarchy doesn’t mean that the anarchists cannot be moral, it’s just that there is no criticism when they are not. But whether anarchists and hacktivists can forever co-exist under the same umbrella is questionable, for the moral side will forever be tarnished by certain actions within the amoral side.
Recent events with New Zealand’s Red Sky Film and Television are a good example. On 25 July AnonVoldemort tweeted, “RedSky hacked!”, adding “no en nombre de anonymous” (“not on behalf of anonymous”). But AnonVoldemort tagged some of the leading Anonymous accounts, such as @anonctrl and @AnonOpsSweden – clearly linking himself, by association, with Anonymous; and simultaneously drawing attention to himself. Merely by calling himself ‘Anon’ he is part of the anarchist side of Anonymous.
Last month Anonymous published an exhortation to ‘rebuild the hive’. It’s a call, effectively, to return to roots – to remember the reasons for Anonymous. It could have come from either side, anarchist or hacktivist; but it includes, “If someone has made a questionable move, or has made a mistake, bring it up to them, NOT in public, but give them the respect of a Direct Message (or PM), humiliation is NOT how we show each other respect and it is not productive.”
But AnonVoldemort had broken an unwritten rule from the hacktivist side, best explained in Commander X’s golden rule: “Anonymous Principles; 1) Don’t attack media. 2) Don’t attack infrastructure. 3) Work non-violently for internet freedom...” It doesn’t mention charities by name, but charities would seem to be included. And Red Sky Film and Television is effectively a charity, donating proceeds from its work to an organization that provides breakfasts for hungry kids in New Zealand.
When it got hacked, Bryan Bruce of Red Sky appealed for help on Facebook. The New Zealand Herald reports, “I posted on Facebook 'can anybody help me with this' because I don't understand how all this hacking stuff works. It's beyond me. Two or three people picked it up and, as I understand, they contacted some top hackers in a group called Anonymous.”
Within a day, Bruce received an email from (hacktivist) Anonymous with details of the attacker, believed to be a 35-year old Spanish man living with his mother in Madrid. Bruce passed the details to the Spanish police – and the AnonVoldemort account has disappeared from Twitter. The more attractive, moral, side of Anonymous has shown itself; but it will still be some time before the Red Sky Film and Television website is rebuilt.