::fibreculture:: The Leisure Class as Lynch Mob (Scientology vs. Anonymous)

[Christian McCrea]

In the spirit of continuing some conversations regardless of silence...

I just wanted to ask if anybody has been following the recent events
of the past week concerning
the activities of Anonymous and their attack on Church of Scientology
websites. For those who
may not be familiar, Anonymous is a named superstructure of internet
users who post or lurk on
any of the highly popular -chan image boards. These boards were
created over the past 5-6 years
in response to the greater and greater individualisation of the
internet through Myspace, Facebook,
where ego management is the prima materia of communication. The -chan
boards (which I don't
recommend anybody visit from their work computers) are usually
intensely puerile arenas where
people communicate as on a forum, but all forms of naming or
identification are disallowed, frowned
upon and banned. A type of anti-social networking, if you like. This
of course also allows lots of
very horrible behaviour, as the mask of anonymity completely shatters
responsible dialogue.

Anybody frequenting these sites is therefore Anonymous, and users
often ask questions of the
group - 'Does Anonymous like this band?', 'What does Anonymous think
of this?', always asked
by another Anonymous. Every so often, Anonymous would stage raids on
other virtual communities,
forums, sites, Second Life, Habbo, and so on with the purpose of mass
nuisance, disruption of
services and a crude form of aesthetic commentary.

I became interested in the Anonymous phenomena during some of these
raids and am uncomfortable
dismissing them merely as a teenaged leisure lynch mob - although
those of you thinking this are
completely right in that impression. Something worthy of comment was
going on, as people were
responding to growing up with LJ, Facebook and Myspace by donning
Anonymous and its trappings
(anti-political correctness, consistent nuisance generation, a set of
unfunny memes such as the LOLcats
later popularised by sites like I Can Haz Cheezburger?)

So I've been fascinated with the events of the past two weeks. Ever
since that Tom Cruise Scientology
video leaked, with his claims that only Scientologists can help the
survivors of a car crash, Anonymous
has staged a real-life (IRL) raid on Scientology offices the world
over - protests, fax spamming, and a massive
12-day distributed denial of service attack, which has a conservative
estimate of seven thousand participating
IP blockers. Which means at the very least that seven thousand
computers have been set up to hammer
Scientology webpages, if not that many participants. Everything is
loosely organised, fast and stupid - and
even largely ineffective. What interests me, however, is the massive
scale of the action. Just in the last couple
of days, dozens of youtube videos showing disruptive activities have
been gathering views - outside CoS offices
in dozens of cities.

Those familiar with Scientology's efforts to stifle free speech
relating to its products in the 1990s can probably
see this in the light of the internet having a social history. At many
times during the raids, references to Operation
Clambake and so on are made. Within a couple of days, the collective
action morphed from a reaction to the Church
demanding the Cruise video be taken down from Youtube, into something
more amorphous. Very surprisingly,
the attacks are not at Scientology itsel, but are directed at the
closure of free speech and free access specifically.

This video has become a touchstone for what has become known as
Project Chanology:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQ

Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology

One of the more popular Anonymous rally points:
http://www.partyvan.info/index.php/Project_Chanology

The reason I wanted to bring all this to Fibreculture's attention is
that we all hear at a fairly regular pace some worry
that teenagers growing up now are politically apathetic and only
engaged with the dynamics of leisure. As those invested
into the social dynamics of technology, events like this are worth
paying the closest attention to, because they signal
some remarkable shifts in the activities of a digital leisure class. I
use the term 'lynch mob' in the subject of this email
specifically because it is loaded with cultural and racial tensions,
but also because I don't know of a better term to describe
what is going on here. The groups involved are using all the languages
and trappings of revolution and insurrection, capable
of direct action, global reach, local politics, asymmetrical behaviour
and cell structure.

If anybody has any context to apply to this phenomena, it could be
good to unpack what is occuring,

Thanks,

-Christian McCrea
Swinburne University of Technology