Masked Protesters Aid Time Warner’s Bottom Line | Hacker News Reader

Masked Protesters Aid Time Warner’s Bottom Line

nytimes.com

75 pointssp33217 comments

This is always a weak argument, "if you're so anticapitalist, why aren't you completely removed from the grid??" Just because you're opposed to something doesn't mean you don't participate in any part of it. Part of the frustration of people who are anti-establishment is that you have to participate in a corrupt system to exist in society.

To be completely honest, it wasn't really an anti-Anonymous argument, although there is a touch of irony there. If anything, the article mostly talked through Time Warner's perspective.

Not every Anonymous mask. I've seen a do-it-yourself 3d paper cutout of the Fawkes/Vendetta mask you can print, cut out and glue together to get a royalty-free mask. Oh yeah, found it: http://forums.whyweprotest.net/threads/need-graphic-printabl...

If you use Time Warner cable to download it, they comp themselves.

The black bloc tactics would seem to be far superior to the use of such `V' masks, due to the highly generic nature of black clothing, scarves, etc. Alas.

The black clothes have the disadvantage that people associate them with violence and political extremism, opposing the goals of the Anonymous movement.

However, maybe some other color would do.

This is the top of the front page of HN, really??

>This is the top of the front page of HN, really??

My approach is to go to the "new" link at the top of HN, find an article that I consider HN-worthy, and upvote it.

Rather than cryptic criticism, can you explain why you think it's not worthy? If you think only "technical" or "business" , etc. stories should be in the front page, how about the interesting article on the gold dollar coins, the post about overlearning the game problem, or the article on explain right-left to aliens, all of them were on the front page and totally made my Monday morning.

You should understand that a story is on the front page because people upvote it and put it there. You can argue that the HN crowd is going down the drain, as others have done, of course.

Maybe I'm being dense, but I don't get the point of this article. If the Church of Scientology owned a significant share of Time Warner, then there would be some irony. Or maybe I missed it and Anyonmous is an anti-capitalist organization?

Frankly, I think this is the right mask to use. It is consistent with the role the mask portrayed in the movie V for Vendetta. Further, this image is mostly free of the negative political implications of just about any other mask (e.g.: Imagine in Anyonmous used a Richard Nixon mask... they'd look like bank robbers or the topic of richard nixon would muddy the waters. Nobody is debating Guy Fawkes when they see people in the mask, because the mask is the supposed to be a mask and the original mask wearer was using it as a symbol of fawkes protest, not fawkes politics, etc.)

Well, I actually hear the argument about how Guy Fawkes was a religious fanatic come up quite a bit in that context. It really is a V Mask not a Guy Fawkes mask in that regard.

The irony is that a multi-national corporation is profiting from the mask that many people associate with a protest group that attacks, among others, multi-national corporations.

Yeah but not because they are multi-national corporations.

So, if you're ignorant as to what the people in anon publicly claim their motives are, and listen to someone else's inaccurate description instead, this is totally ironic! Haha!

In other breaking news, all computer parts are manufactured by multinational corporations.

I don't think it's anti-capitalist in general, but definitely anti-big-media-companies. Time Warner is an MPAA member, for example, and the MPAA isn't too well liked.

In fact, Time Warner is one of the most aggressive in taking down content that uses theirs, so the average internet user/ Anonymous would be pretty likely to dislike Warner above and beyond the average company.

This is ironic beyond words! It brought to mind that the anarchist, underground book that Winston Smith wanted to read so long and finally managed to do so in 1984 was penned by a government agent. Whatever you do, the machinery somehow can get back to you!

What Anonymous should have done is to create their own, unique design, OS'ed, and put it online with an Apache 2.0 license.

P.S. On a different note, Fawkes was a bad guy, if he had succeeded, many people would have died. That's obviously not the way to persuade people.

EDIT: Are the downvoters against OS'ing the mask or using Apache 2.0 license for it. Or maybe they don't agree with the fact that Fawkes was a "bad guy". We'll never know because they don't bother to leave any comments.

If it's the latter: Look, anyone, repeat, anyone who plans to blow up people, for any cause whatsoever is a bad guy in my book. It doesn't matter how many people you kill, or what kind of people they were. If you disagree with this one, there isn't much to discuss, continue the downvoting if you want.

On the other hand, if you think that Anon's use of the mask does not portray the real Fawkes but the movie's depiction of him, that's a different matter. Then we can discuss how V's politics differ, if any, from Fawkes.

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