You can call Anon a bunch of script kiddies, but they hit the front page of nearly every major news source today. What have you done for free speech lately?
edit: If you want to help http://pastehtml.com/view/1c8i33u.html
edit: If you want to help http://pastehtml.com/view/1c8i33u.html
Well done, Anon.
All they have done is make it harder to get accross the point that Wikileaks is a legitimate news organisation (like The Guardian and the NYTimes who are also publishing the cables) and as such should be protected as exemplars of a free press.
Their actions are harmful, narcisistic and juvenile.
Try to silence WikiLeaks and I beat that 95% (or more) of the average Joe on the street will have no idea who they are. Why do they care? They don't know and probably wouldn't care.
Sometimes people need to stand up and protest. Their actions are as harmful as holding hands in the street and blocking traffic. People did that before and it was considered peaceful protest. Almost the same, but they blocked internet traffic.
"There is no bad publicity"
...etc...
People give Anon and Parks too much credit in my book.
Exactly right, which is why Paypal shouldn't have disrupted Wikileaks' account. Bullying the little guy is quite cowardly of these multi-national corporations.
No, I cannot. =) Knowing that, reread my post.
Messing with PayPal messes with a lot of small businesses that make their money through the internet.
It's a stupid move because anyone who was in the 'undecided' category with anonymous, and relies on things like PayPal, is now in the 'against' category.
PayPal is already back up and running. And Anonymous just lost a lot of support, as evidenced by this page. That's an own-goal in my book.
These type of actions are also very likely to backfire. PayPal is not going to change it's policy, neither is Visa or Mastercard. If anything, it will harden their opinions.
If you want to do something about free-speech then there are much better ways of going about it than this.
It's like the kid in high school who you could dare to eat anything for $1. The more he does it, the more attention he gets, the more he is motivated to do it.
The more the press covers their activities, the more exposure they get, the more people join their IRC server, the more people download LOIC, which all turns into the more damage they can do. Repeat.
Look at the highest rated comment on this page, it contains a direct link to how people can get involved.
What have you done for free speech lately?