Anonymous versus Scientology - Pittsburgh Edition

An interesting thing happened in Pittsburgh yesterday: thirty or forty nerds (of both genders) stood up from their computers and walked, drove or used public transportation to get to the local office of the Church of Scientology. There, in below freezing temperatures, they stood in masks, hats, sunglasses and coats, and peacefully protested the tactics employed by the Church of Scientology in suppressing information about its beliefs and practices.

However, these were no ordinary nerds, and this was no isolated, easily ignored protest. The protesters were members of internet strike force Anonymous, a group that sprung up out of some of the least censored places of information exchange on the internet: the *chan family of boards. The boards, which include the notorious 4chan, serve as a home to one of the internet's most vibrant, rapid-paced, bewildering, brutal and intellectually incestuous cultures. Serving as houses of exchange for images as well as ideas, they are the secret forges in which lolcats were forged and the breeding grounds in which memes exponentiate.

Anonymous emerged as a kind of group identity in these troubled waters, a sort of lurking presence that would have you believe they are always behind you, watching what you do, always there to mock anyone who displays overweening pride, a collective voice moving through the shadows. You see, anyone can post anonymously on one of these boards, but you never know which anonymous comments are Anonymous.

This shadowy group of forum dwellers and IRC aficionados was incensed when, on January 18th, the Church of Scientology attempted to have a certain infamous Tom Cruise video (check the tag) removed from Youtube as a copyright violation. Considering this act an act of internet censorship, Anonymous launched Project Chanology on January 21st with a video in which a synthesized voice read out the following message over intensely menacing music and time-lapsed footage of clouds:

"Hello, Scientology. We are Anonymous.

Over the years, we have been watching you. Your campaigns of misinformation; suppression of dissent; your litigious nature, all of these things have caught our eye. With the leakage of your latest propaganda video into mainstream circulation, the extent of your malign influence over those who trust you, who call you leader, has been made clear to us. Anonymous has therefore decided that your organization should be destroyed."

The message continues, in brilliant propagandistic form, and was merely the opening move in a strategy which yesterday saw actual human beings taking to the actual streets in actual anonymity, except for the brave few who left their faces uncovered, and those who were picketing in areas where masks were prohibited. Some of those made do with hats, scarves and sunglasses. The nearest protest,as far as I'm concerned, was the one in Pittsburgh.



A friend of mine, who we're going to call Jordan Edwards*, was able to make it to the scene. He took the pictures you're seeing, and had this to say: "Besides the fact that it was a protest, everything seemed pretty cordial. No one was shouting anything, they were just waving signs and talking politely to the people who stopped or honked their horns."


*The illegitimate son of John Edwards. Yes, this is a pseudonym. Somewhat.

The rest of the pictures depict similarly peaceful scenes, which seem to have been a general theme for the day, with protesters apparently enjoying themselves. There was an incident in Hollywood where a Scientologist woman apparently approached, heckled, and then assaulted protesters before being dragged back into the Scientology compound and subsequently arrested. I find it infinitely amusing that, as she approaches and attempts to provoke hostility, Anonymous begin to chant, "Don't feed the troll!"

I think this is the first time we've seen an internet subculture become actively involved in protesting organizations or events in the real-world that do not directly threaten them. Certainly, it's the first time an internet subculture has organized global protests of an organization in under three weeks.

Pundits and traditional journalists have frequently disparaged the internet generation for writing about things on their blog, but not taking action in the real world. Events like this, which remind me of flash mobs (or, more accurately, smart mobs) on a global scale, make me wonder if we're just still figuring out how to best arrange such displays.

It's something to keep an eye on.