It appears very likely now that the original call to action for what was (and still possibly is) called “Operation Facebook” is now being disowned by a large number of members of the famous hacker group. If you’ll take a look at the monstrously popular Anonymous Vows Facebook Destruction post from late night Tuesday, you’ll find the original release as created by a very real member of the collective, but this newest set of information confirms that the entirety of the Anonymous collective may not agree with the proposed action.
One Twitter account notorious for releasing “real” bits of information in one way or another spoken by perhaps more important leaders of Anonymous spoke the following: “We absolutely disown #OpFacebook … We’re supposed to fight for the users, not against them. Don’t violate private citizen privacy please.” This #OpFacebook of course then links to the keyword OpFacebook on Twitter where today we’re seeing a list of Tweets mostly speaking about how not only was this newest operation created by somewhat of a “rogue element” in the collective, but that the attack had indeed been spoken about and disowned on a previous occasion by the larger bit of Anonymous as well.
This whole situation goes back to July 1st where, on the main chat network for Anonymous, there was a channel called #OpFacebook and, as Forbes’ Parmy Olson reports, about two dozen members actually did discuss an attack on the social networking site, though the discussion did turn quickly into what many would refer to as “N00B talk”: “Oooo I wanna hack something lol,” said one chatterer, then asked if he’d ever hacked anything before replying, “I’m here to learn.”
The original date set up for this attack was July 4th notes the original document created by several members of the collective, though as Olson notes again, this date was followed by a note which read: “Guys, we are running out of time, we need a new date.” Of course then you know the rest of this little bit: this date came and went and no such attack took place. The Twitter account @OP_Facebook was then set up on the 16th of July and a link to the YouTube video you can see in the Anonymous Vows Facebook Destruction post was posted. This is the point at which a completely new set of so-called members of Anonymous took over.
According to Gawker, this new set of users found the original #OpFacebook chatroom, saw that there was indeed a set of text created (this again available in the first post we’ve made) and decided they’d take up the cause, creating said Twitter account and switching the date to the infamous November 5th. The current situation stands, one way or another, that the original OpFacebook gathering is now booming, hundreds of new participants joining in on the conversation, this very possibly increasing the possibility that a real Operation Facebook could take place.
Meanwhile the so-called “old hats” of Anonymous continue to wash their hands of the whole situation.