After reading the articles for this week, the emphasis on digital media and the role it plays global activism movements reminded me of a documentary i had seen call We Are Legion: The Story of Hacktivists. This film deconstructs the idea of hacktivism and gets down to the roots of the issue and its ultimate purpose. Hacktivism original purpose was the creation of software that could be spread to activist in other countries so that they could communicate securely, even if their government was spying on them. Hacktivism allows for information to spread globally and create social movements that push back on the ways governments go about policing their citizens. Freedom of expression, the ability for everyone to communicate without censorship, and equal access to the internet are the pillars on which the hacktivist movement was built. Over time, this movement has shown that hacktivism means to designate a form of political activity, in which technology assistance is used for human rights activism. This social movement is what led Chris Moot Poole to found a website call 4chan in the early 2000’s. 4chan is a central hub in which the raw and unfiltered content of the dark internet exists in a unified community. It is from this community that well know hacktivist groups like Anonymous and Dead Cow got their start. 4chan has gathered people with similar interest and created this intriguing internet culture that when stirred can be organized to crush the agendas of its enemies, surely a force to be reckoned with.
