An open letter to the media, by Anonymous

by r0h1n • 13 years ago

201 87 13 years ago

ThePinion• 13 years ago

"Unfortunate" is definitely the word for the fact that these masks that hold such great symbolism to Anonymous (and other groups) are owned by the companies that want to control the internet.

So they've called out the media for using products by Foxconn, okay. What do they expect to come from that? I'm really not sure.

The main thing I got from this is that we should find another mask, or face, for Anonymous and activism/protesting in general. One that maybe holds more significant value in freedom of mankind, and one that is free of copyright. As much as I love Alan Moore, I think it's time Anonymous finds/creates an open-source mask.

ZoF• 13 years ago

'Eh; I don't believe, "call[ing] out the media for using products by foxconn" was the intention of the statement.

They were illustrating the near impossibility of knowing the manufacturing conditions of every product you purchase, and through that illustration pointing out that the majority of consumers(The Telegraph staff included) have at some point purchased(or currently own) products which were manufactured in conditions contrary to said consumers personal beliefs.

Effectively the statement is pointing out that it's extremely difficult to not be "hypocritical"(according to Martha Gill's definition) in some manner when purchasing manufactured products and that she/they are just as hypocritical(if not more so given that the masks in question aren't produced in a sweatshop).

I don't think 'anonymous' would deny being just as guilty of 'hypocritical' purchases themselves; they're just showing the irony of The Telegraph falsely calling them out on the 'hypocrisy' that they[The Telegraph] are likely just as much a part of.

The concept behind the Guy Fawkes mask is what makes it so effective/universally adopted, and despite the royalties being paid for these masks(a pittance in the grand scheme of things) I don't see them going anywhere anytime soon.

So yeah, I have to agree; 'unfortunate' just about sums it up.

pera• 13 years ago

What is actually "unfortunate" in my opinion is that so many people are using the v/guyfawkes mask without any knowledge of its origin (efg, /b/) and its meaning (a joke)

icebraining3• 13 years ago

When David Lloyd created the Guy Fawkes mask, /b/ didn't even exist.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120918184420/marvel_...

lake992• 13 years ago

I guess ZoF has addressed your misunderstanding about mentioning Foxconn.

The main thing I got from this is that we should find another mask, or face, for Anonymous and activism/protesting in general. One that maybe holds more significant value in freedom of mankind

The write-up already quotes “Wear anything you want to #MillionMaskMarch, including Guy Fawkes. We just want people to be conscious about their consumer choices.”

Do you want something free of copyright? Cut out a circle from thick paper, poke holes for eyes and nose, draw a smiley, attach a band, and wear it.

nonchalance• 13 years ago

Are the Guardian, the Telegraph and the New Statesman notable for their fair and balanced journalism (or are they the fox news of europe)?

maaarghk• 13 years ago

The Daily Mail is the fox news of the UK. The Telegraph is not a whole lot better - it's actually less serious and dangerous and just ridiculous. The Guardian is pretty similar, just for the opposite political side.

hugofirth• 13 years ago

The Telegraph is less serious/more ridiculous than the Daily Mail? I'm sorry but that is almost demonstrably absurd...

If you read the Telegraph and Guardian you expose yourself to a fairly broad spectrum of political views, all backed up by serious journalistic credentials. Obviously you have to be aware of prejudice - but this does not render the content worthless.

For instance - whilst the Telegraph is undoubtedly an outlet which leans towards a Tory hymn sheet it printed a large section on MP expenses, prominently, every day, for a month. Likewise the Guardian have been harsh critics of Labours handling of the Unions.

majc2• 13 years ago

Broadsheet/quality press - fairly balanced in journalism. Editorially, while its more nuanced than left and right, this will give you a general idea of political leanings. Guardian is leftish, Telegraph is rightish, New Statesman is leftish.

anigbrowl2• 13 years ago

A famous quote from the satirical political TV comedy Yes, Minister sums up the British press fairly well. Amusingly, one of the characters is named Jim Hacker.

Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers: the Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country; and The Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is.

Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?

Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big tits.

(The Mirror is a leftish tabloid, the Sun a rightist tabloid, both are strident and stupid. The Guardian is a lefty broadsheet, very 'liberal media' by American standards. The Times is center-right, the Daily Mail is middle-class outrage and celebrity gossip (and outrage about our culture of celebrity gossip). The Financial Times is like the WSJ without the axe-grinding editorials; the Morning Star is now defunct but used to be a mouthpiece for the USSR communist party. The Telegraph, sometimes referred to as the Torygraph for its unflinching support of the Tory party, is basically a serious newspaper for people who are convinced the country has gone to the dogs, global warming is nefarious plot, and so on. There's also the Independent, which didn't appear until some years later, which can best be summed up as 'worthy but boring.')

ableal• 13 years ago

the satirical political TV comedy Yes, Minister

Actually a documentary, as someone pointed out years ago. Great quote.

(Something else depressingly well along the way to being a documentary is Terry Gilliam's 1985 movie Brazil.)

sebkomianos• 13 years ago

Here is a the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M

andyking• 13 years ago

the Morning Star is now defunct

They still sell it where I live.

lmm2• 13 years ago

The Telegraph is a serious, respectable newspaper; quite a way out on the right (at least by British standards), but with integrity, and open about its biases. The Guardian is more or less equal and opposite; again a serious, respectable paper, but one that caters to sandal-wearing vegan hippies. New Statesman is a very respectable magazine, probably analogous to The Economist (and with a similar right-wing but socially liberal stance). But yes, between them these are about as good as it gets, pretty much the opposite of "the fox news of europe".

aluhut• 13 years ago

If I would be part of them, I would create a 3D-printer model of the mask and share that all over so people can organise their own distribution...

Ygg24• 13 years ago

Or you know, papercraft the suckers, its not like there aren't papercraft versions of it. My roommate made me one.

raverbashing5• 13 years ago

Thanks, this gave me a smile

People think "oh let's build a startup for 3d-printing model this on the cloud, blah blah blah"

Where anyone with modest skills can build this using scissors, some cardboard, or Papier-Maché or some other technique.

ck22• 13 years ago

Why do you even need 3D printing, an artist can certainly make a 2D drawing that looks 3D and put it on a website or email for people to just print out.

paulvalley• 13 years ago

How does Ms Gill know that all those masks are made in the same factory and that all of them pay royalties?

It would have been fair to mention that in the west at least 3d printers are becoming more and more common and anyone can download a Fawkes mask model and 3dprint it at home. http://tf3dm.com/3d-model/v-for-vendetta-guy-fawkes-mask-481...

Or if you're feeling environmentally friendly, out of recycled cardboard. It's no rocket science really. Or how about this one as an origami? http://www.instructables.com/id/Guy-Fawkes-Mask-in-Origami/

It took me 5 seconds to find these on Google. Ms Gill comes across as particularly lazy and not very well intentioned.

_bfhp2• 13 years ago

The following quote is relevant here:

“WOULD ANY SANE PERSON think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”? Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.

Or let’s talk water. We so often hear that the world is running out of water. People are dying from lack of water. Rivers are dewatered from lack of water. Because of this we need to take shorter showers. See the disconnect? Because I take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers? Well, no. More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings. People (both human people and fish people) aren’t dying because the world is running out of water. They’re dying because the water is being stolen.

…Personal change doesn’t equal social change.” — Forget Shorter Showers: Why Personal Changes Does Not Equal Political Change

Even if every Guy Fawkes mask were made at Foxconn itself, a boycott wouldn't do anything to the working conditions. Teens would still purchase them based on the movie (or, heaven forbid, the actual comic book). What is necessary is restructuring the world to make Foxconn impossible.

[1] http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801...

Ygg24• 13 years ago

I think we are moving to a such world, albeit slowly.

3D printers are a movement in that direction, that ends with mini factories or replicators.

Replicators will be the death kneel of the factories.

joeshevland• 13 years ago

Having read Alastair Reynold's stuff, I thought the idea of replicators was awesome. My current thinking is that 3d printers, if they master multiple materials, will kill off mundane manufacturing. I can't see it being a bad thing, albeit an industrial revolution style shift.

eddiedunn• 13 years ago

"Death knell", please. While I see why one would confuse "knell" with "kneel", this is incorrect and the words have vastly different meanings.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_knell

http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/knell

_pmf_• 13 years ago

“WOULD ANY SANE PERSON think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?"

Now what kind of fucking straw man is this?

teddyh• 13 years ago

Please add attribution before the beginning of the quote; otherwise it looks like the quote is from the open letter itself.

_bfhp2• 13 years ago

sorry, didn't see this until the edit window expired

lake992• 13 years ago

When we're talking about movements like Anonymous, we are talking about a group of people who are quite vocal about their stances. These guys definitely carry considerable clout. That's how the Million Mask March came about, for example. The "personal change" that Derrick Jensen's article talks about just not relevant here.

alextingle2• 13 years ago

I think that was his point.

raverbashing5• 13 years ago

"wah wah wah corporations are bad, growth is bad"

Corporations and economic growth are directly responsible for the possibility that this discussion is happening: the internet, cheap and powerful computers, etc

Or even better: https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/391943773963304960

atmosx2• 13 years ago

Your comment reminds me of this awesome article by the WSJ[1]. The funny thing is that, it's so out of reality that I wouldn't even bother arguing.

See the miners filled lawsuits against the company, because weren't for capitalism their life and working conditions would have avoided a life-threatening situation.

But then again depends what you wanna do: Find the truth or find evidence - even risking ridicule - to support your beliefs.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870367360...

VikingCoder3• 13 years ago

"wah wah wah monarchy is bad, empire is bad"

The British government is directly responsible for the possibility that this discussion of "taxation without representation" is happening; colonization, trade, etc.

Sometimes when you stand on the shoulders of giants, you realize that the old ways were lousy. America as it is today wouldn't exist without slavery and Native American genocide.

I'm not comparing Capitalism to Genocide, but I am saying the form of argument you used is ridiculous, because I can use the same argument to defend awful things.

If you stop and listen for one minute, people like me are saying, "Maybe the current system is TOO excessive, and should be reigned in, in some ways." We think laws should help fight the excesses of unchecked capitalism.

We're not proposing the "share everything" that Kasparov ridicules, and posing our argument that way is an absurd straw man.

That said, I don't represent a united front of people who believe identically to me, but your argument is so absurd that I think it might practically be targeted at only a tiny minority of people currently saying anything negative about corporations and our current means of economic growth.

karlshea• 13 years ago

You are of course totally right, it wouldn't be possible.

However it is possible to have large corporations and growth but also do it in a responsible manner. It won't be an overnight fix but there are a lot of smart people in this world that could make it work.

And of course lots of the solutions to the problems are also vilified (nuclear is a big one) so it isn't going to be easy.

But I think the general point being made shouldn't be dismissed entirely. They are right about many of the "solutions" that are presented being sort of a waste of time, intended only to make people feel better about themselves without making any real progress towards fixing the problem.

dalek_cannes• 13 years ago

Let us take iPhone-carrying anti-corporate protesters. Should we attribute the iPhone to 'Apple Corporation' and shun it, or to the individuals -- designers, engineers, accountants and managers -- who made happen? Corporations are a means of bringing these people together to work in a coordinated manner. I don't think anybody (except communists) says that people with skills working together for financial gain is a bad thing. It's the prevailing model of doing that people are objecting to. It has no safeguards against corruption.

djrobstep• 13 years ago

That's right kids: Any reform of the status quo is literally communism.

hawleyal• 13 years ago

And the mass consumption and pollution of the earth. No big deal.

informatimago• 13 years ago

Sure. But there may be a better way: http://thevenusproject.org

eitally• 13 years ago

The specific reason for the Apple supply chain factory worker abuses mentioned everywhere is BECAUSE apply has depressed their supply chain so much and forced such high velocity execution on their orders. Without captive labor, it's nearly impossible for anyone to meet the ridiculously spiky demand.

ck22• 13 years ago

Speaking of foxconn, this story sadly got buried today

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-07/an-iphone-te...

But it is very much worth reading.

e12e3• 13 years ago

Thank you for (re?)posting this. Very interesting indeed (if, sadly, not very surprising).

espeed• 13 years ago

Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance.

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." - Plutarch

KyeRussell• 13 years ago

Can we please stop with all this Anonymous BS? The point of the 'movement' is that it's decentralised. 'Anonymous' can't write 'open letters'. This is just pathetic.

efdee• 13 years ago

Sure it can. It just did. It can also write an angry letter to itself to say that it disagrees with the statement previously put out. Or are you trying to tell us that it's decentralised, except for the decision that people can't write open letters in their name, which is centralised with you?

alextingle2• 13 years ago

Well, "Anonymous" didn't write that letter. Some specific activist wrote it, and has posted it under the Anonymous "brand". If the wider movement likes it (and they should because it's well written and spot on target) then they will promote it and adopt it as theirs.

We don't know who wrote the piece. The author is anonymous, but their words will probably reach a far, far wider audience than if they had published under their own name.

That's the way the movement works. It is decentralised. I'm sorry that you think it's pathetic.

floobynewb• 13 years ago

Yes! Not enough people get this. Anonymous is a name for a loose, evolving affiliation of ideas, it is not a specific group of people. It personifies a set of beliefs, a view of the world, it allows a hive mind to express itself as an individual. It allows the ideas to speak for themselves. In so doing it allows those ideas to evolve more rapidly.

I am not well versed in history, so I can't say if this is novel, but it is a fabulous idea.

It is clear to me that, just as thought can emerge from the movement of charge between networks of neurons so can it emerge from the chatter of a million people. The same processes are at work, you might call it 'emergence' but I suspect that our mathematics does not yet capture it's description adequately.

This is the kind of system we need to develop and enhance if we are to create a better world. Our social structure is prescriptive and too rigidly hierarchical, it has broken away from it's dynamic, organic roots and lost touch with the magic that seems to generate flexible and resilient structure out of nothing.

If you accept the isomorphism between the mind and society, then you may see that the internet is radically disruptive. It has made communication orders of magnitude faster and it has changed the topology of the network described by society. This is changing us, quickly. For better or worse remains to be seen. But I suspect the effects of the internet revolution are only now beginning.

Perhaps I'm just seeing what I want to see...

The battle outside ragin' Will soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin'

(attribution should not be needed)

droidist2• 13 years ago

People are too in love with the idea of seeing others get "nailed" for being hypocrites. All you have to do is say something that sounds vaguely clever or ironic in a snarky manner and people go "Ooooh, snap" even if it really makes not much sense. For instance: "Julian Assange of Wikileaks wants to protect his own privacy." "Ooooh, snap."

socillion• 13 years ago

Accusations of hypocrisy are a form of ad hominem, so I agree it's amusing that so many people think they are good arguments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

VikingCoder3• 13 years ago

I think hypocrisy is a valid argument specifically when someone claims that they should be trusted with political power because they behave in a puritan, unassailable manner, while their opponent is merely human.

When it turns out they're a hypocrite, it strikes at the core of why they were elected.

Moreover, it SHOULD remind people that the guy who claims his morals are unassailable is lying to you.

chrismonsanto• 13 years ago

This has gotten way worse now that we have Tumblr and Twitter. Tumblr is just crazy about sassy.gif posts. As for Twitter, I would have never imagined that the hashtag would become this generation's </sarcasm>.

Maybe it is just that the Internet is more popular than it was in the 90s. On the other hand, I think rich media offers more opportunities to be snarky, and of course we are going to take advantage of this. #smh #justsayin

foucault• 13 years ago

The masks represent: Unity Equality Struggle against oppression

That is all. Fuck warner brothers

Guy Fawkes was the only person to enter the houses of parliament with honourable intentions

atmosx2• 13 years ago

+1 in this case, it's the meaning that matters.

icebraining3• 13 years ago

What was so honorable about his intentions? From what I read about the plot, they were essentially replacing an oppressor for another.

lmm2• 13 years ago

My word, did you study any history? Fawkes wanted to assassinate (not nobly duel or anything) the King to replace him with a more repressive King.

welly• 13 years ago

Honourable? What are you talking about? He was butt hurt that Catholicism had been ousted and wanted to bring it back into power.

mhurron• 13 years ago

There is little honourable about Fawkes intentions, however the actual quote is "the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions."

Which makes a lot more sense. He said he was going to blow things up, he went in to blow things up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes

ch2152• 13 years ago

Defending the Press is almost universally unpopular. However, I think there's a important distinction to be made here. Namely that Martha Gill's piece is comment and not news. Hence it's filed under 'blogs'. Opinion is free to be responsible or irresponsible, informed or misinformed, constructive or destructive but, by definition, it cannot be true or false. I don't see anything wrong with someone expressing an honestly held view based on photographs. It seems hundreds of Anonymous supporters have done exactly that beneath the column.

Zikes2• 13 years ago

“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” ― Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Just because it's filed under "blogs" does not make it above refutation.

ch2152• 13 years ago

I'm not saying it's above refutation, quite the contrary. What I'm saying is the article is opinion--not fact--and it's presented as such.

acromankillah• 13 years ago

The Daily Telegraph is owned by the Barclay brothers who also own Shop direct, which transferred its call centers to Serco which outsourced them to India and South Africa because it is cheaper. Profit. You can connect anything to low wages and "poor conditions." The point is completely overhauling the corporate government and finding real freedom, real true freedom. The issue is finding people who are aware that the government and media have failed us in their original watchdog approach. Media employees have been sucked into the same trap, that maybe they can get ahead if they stick to the winning side. They are only winning because we, the people, are too comfortable with settling instead of opening our eyes to the truth. You cannot trust the media; it is ran by corporations that influence what we can see and what we can know. It influences what we think. The world must wake up, or we will all be hypnotized by the newest marketing ploy.

veganarchocap• 13 years ago

I don't understand people who are even against sweatshops, do they really want to deprive these areas of the only jobs they do have?

The middle-class westerners have good intentions, sure. Do they really think though, but starving sweatshops to the point of closure, all the staff will walk into well paid work? No, in all probability, the lack of competition and the low budgets will mean they have to fight over even worse jobs, if not... starve.

If you really want to take the moral high-ground, you should only buy from sweat shops, because the more they profit, the more you're contributing to bettering their lives and working conditions.

Buy all the masks you need!

nisa2• 13 years ago

That's cynical and easy to write from a warm chair in a western country.

The problem are the conditions that make sweat-shops the least worst alternative for a lot of people. It's power, money and corruption.

There is no financial gain for western corporations or governments to really solve these problems. We profit from the political and economical instability in these countries and therefore from the suffering these people have to endure. We make ugly deals using the World Bank and the IMF to destabilize their markets. We help to keep corrupt politicians in place and happily exploit natural resources in these countries.

But nobody cares.

skylan_q2• 13 years ago

The problem are the conditions that make sweat-shops the least worst alternative for a lot of people. It's power, money and corruption.

If the least worst alternative is taken away from them, then they have only the next least worst alternative. Asking to take this away is asking to take away the best thing they have.

It's easy to write from a warm chair in a western country that people should have better job conditions considering the availability of jobs that allow for consumerism.

furyg32• 13 years ago

There must be ground rules for the game of capitalism. Market's are awesome at balancing things like price/quality/features. Most consumers can do that, and if they can't, well... caveat emptor.

But if the quality is so bad that people die, or are maimed, poisoned, or otherwise injured, we have different rules. Consumers aren't good at this, they aren't experts, they don't have the right information. So they turn to regulation (or certification - a voluntary form of regulation). These ethical factors are, of course, a trade-off with the others. Sweatshops and child labor are immoral, we will not tolerate that.

You bring up the interesting point of transition, though. If we stop buying these masks, those people lose their opportunities, and we run the risk that they'll just be produced in some other sweatshop somewhere. As such I am a big fan of transitionary programs with auditing, where if bad conditions are found, the owners are incentivized to make gradual improvements or risk losing customers.

skylan_q2• 13 years ago

These ethical factors are, of course, a trade-off with the others. Sweatshops and child labor are immoral, we will not tolerate that.

If we don't tolerate those, then we don't tolerate giving them the best alternative possible. Asking for more would make it uneconomical, and thus, economically destructive.

evilrevolution• 13 years ago

Naww their feels got hurt.

Anonheadlines• 13 years ago

Great Work my brothers and sisters at Yan It is indeed an outrage how they spread liez about us to get the world against us. we will cont To expose justice and light on there corrupt world and Make action many more times Our fight is far from over they cant ignore us forever seeing many more have came to join us after Nov 5 and will cont to do so with each passing day --- @AnonHeadLines

kelvin0• 13 years ago

What if Anon was a 'covert' branch of the NSA? Or Wikileaks a CIA sub-contractor? Wouldn't that be an awesome twist on an already convoluted saga?

I just like imagining such possibilities, of course this is probably not the case, but the implications ... I guess I have been watching too many Homeland episodes lately. :)

An open letter to the media, by Anonymous

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