AC = Domestic Terrorists?

Miang writes "A video from a recent FOX 11 (Los Angeles) newscast has surfaced on YouTube. In the segment, reporter Phil Shuman investigates so-called "Hacker Gangs" comprised entirely of anonymous users. The segment, which focuses mainly on users at 4chan, 7chan, and 420chan, seems to confuse /b/ raids and motivational poster templates with a genuine threat to the American public. For added FUD, the FOX team inserted an unrelated video of a van blowing up — twice! Presumably, one is intended to equate anonymous posting with domestic terror. The story and video can be found on the local FOX website, so it does not appear to be simply a clever parody." Cringe as you watch this video explain terms like 'LULZ' and show inspirational poster parodies as evidence of the evils of this terrifying "Group".

Re:What's the Background?

[Chmcginn]

I understand that Fox News isn't really news,

It's not FOX's national news that did this report, it was a local affiliate. Check out your local ABC or NBC station for more examples of idiocy.

Re:What's the Background?

[skrolle2]

There is a place on the internet called 4chan. It is an imageboard, where you can post pictures of.. stuff. There is a lot of porn on it. There is a lot of very weird porn on it. There is a lot of funny pictures, and people modifying them to become even funnier. It's home to a lot of anonymous posters that enjoy poking fun at idiots on the internet.

You might learn more here:

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/B [encycloped...matica.com]
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Image:B_summa ry.jpg [encycloped...matica.com]
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/4chan [encycloped...matica.com]
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Image:4chan-v enn-diagram.png [encycloped...matica.com]

If you think tubgirl, lemonparty and goatse is funny, this is where they came from. If you think lolcats and ORLY is funny, this is where it came from.

Also, the biggest crime you can commit is to ask for information, just like you did. You clearly need to lurk moar.

Re:/b/ is mainstream

[Anonymous Coward]

/b/ is well-known among people who are familiar with the Internet as a culture, and not just that thing you use to download porn and music, but it's not quite mainstream yet. It doesn't really matter at this point anyway, /b/ as it once was is long dead, never to return.

While some people point to the invasions as the beginning of the end, I think there were far more contributing factors, of which the invasions are a relatively minor contribution. The most obvious problem is that there are only so many quality posters: eventually, as it continued to grow, the average new user got progressively worse, dropping the quality of the board as a whole significantly. Another important, yet often overlooked, cause is the mods, or more specifically the lack of mods. In the /b/ of old, the moderators were highly visible and thus had a significant effect on the board, whether it was through publicly banning idiots, wordfiltering anything they felt like, abusing their power to force a meme, or whatever else. And of course, there's the eternal problem of moot being a gigantic faggot who fucks everything up.

But though one could debate the many possible causes behind it, at this point it can't really change the massive failure /b/ has been for the past (at least) 20 million or so posts, and will be until 4chan is dead.

Re:Yellow journalism at its finest

[brass1]

An affiliate, like an individual franchise, isn't owned by the overall corporation.

Actually this affiliate, in the #2 TV and radio market, is owned by Fox Television Stations, Inc. Fox owns [newscorp.com] (pdf, sorry) 30 affiliates including affiliates in 9 of the top 10 markets. You'll find that NBC, ABC and CBS have very similar station ownership stats.

Re:/huh?/

[Soul-Burn666]

Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Urban Dictionary [urbandictionary.com]
Encyclopedia Dramatica [encycloped...matica.com]
Uncyclopedia [uncyclopedia.org]

Enjoy!

Re:What's the Background?

[Anonymous Coward]

tubgirl and goatse have been around *far* longer than 4chan has even existed. But yes, they do represent the mentality of the place.

Re:What's the Background?

[dctoastman]

Ah yes, an elitist bastard. How do you do?

4chan is not the place where all this gets started. 4chan is the place where all this collects. Due to 4chan having a rather large population, it is more than likely that most soon to be popular things on the internet will pass through the place.

These things then become popular on 4chan and outside of 4chan simultaneously and independently. 4chan then takes the credit for making it popular. For proof that 4chan cannot propagate a meme, look at Cracky. No one outside of 4chan cares.

Don't mistake your fishbowl for the ocean.

Re:/b/ is mainstream

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

/b/ is a cesspit. A conglomeration of all that is disturbing, perverted, juvenile, inane, humorous, annoying, offensive, shocking and vile. The site is much worse than the sum of its parts.

And yet..... I'm glad it's there. I'm glad that there still exists a place where people can be offensive, racist and rude in all manner of ways. Frankly, the place warms my heart because of its simple honesty. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than the asshole of the internet. It even revels in it. I can respect that kind of honesty.

Ultimately, the /b/tards are more human than the legions of Politically Correct hypocrites that plague our modern society. Humanity isn't always in the images of angels or gods. Sometimes we're altogether more earthly beings, and places like /b/ should serve to remind us of that. If /b/ did not exist, it would be necessary for someone to create it, because /b/ is a part of what humanity is.

To finish off, anytime I have browsed /b/, despite the form of the post and their extreme vulgarity, I never get the vibe that the place is filled with genuinely evil individuals spewing hate and bile. It seems to me that the /b/tards are rather more akin to jesters, or cynics than to Nazi's or the KKK. /b/tards are more likely to laugh and deride such people than side with them. The site seems to be more playful than malicious.

I can see the hypocritical legions of politicians, reporters and busybodies rallying to condemn /b/ as hell on earth, and I can see the /b/tards laughing and mocking them as they do so. But the possibility of the /b/tards being cowed and broken by such a crusade frightens me, because I think it's entirely possible that they will be sought out and persecuted by our modern witch hunters. To me, /b/, ugly as it is, represents our freedoms, and if it falls, I can't see how anything else truly worthwhile in our society can resist being torn down as well.

Sites like /b/ are proof that our society still free. Perversely, its continuing existence akin to an eternal flame of liberty (A flame which no doubt /b/ would collectively attempt to fart on). If it gets snuffed out, I for one won't sleep soundly at night.

Re:/b/ is mainstream

[Zekasu]

/b/'s actually quite well known, to anyone who's been on the internet for awhile.

I'll start by calling it the cesspool of the internet; it's where all the waste from the tubes go to die.

That being said, /b/ is the one who brought things such as Caturday (Not "lolcats") into existence, and also sveral motivational posters. There's actually a lot of internet culture that spawns form that cesspool, which is to say the least, ironic.

If you want to find out what /b/, or /i/ is, I recommend going there yourself. (... Not on your work computer, either.)

[The author is in no way responsible for the aforementioned post whatsoever. What one does with the aforementioned information, etc. is solely the responsibility of the doer.]

Re:HA!

[Anonymous Coward]

No way. People who are showing up because of the fox news story already have the label "foxfags." We don't want them there.

Re:Yellow journalism at its finest

[Meccanica]

people associated with Anonymous did threaten several football stadiums

Are you serious? It's not like people who post anonymously all know each other or something. You seem to have fallen into the trap, by buying into the idea that 'Anonymous' is a specific group of people. I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way.

Oh, man. I'm watching the video as I type this (still loading on my dial-up connection, or I'd have watched it first). Oh hell. It just gets worse and worse. Do people not remember that 'anonymous' is a WORD? (wikipedia powers GO! "derived from the Greek word , meaning 'without a name' or 'name-less'"). The video is now making reference to "sites linked with Anonymous!" Oh no! These nefarious ne'er do wells are using the proper word to describe an individual whose identity is not known! Google and I have found a great many sites linked with Anonymous: there's www.alcoholics-anonymous.org, www.anonymousclothing.com, and an extensive collection of their quotes on www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Anonymous.

Jeez, now I'm really getting worked up about this.

they use the internet and their moniker sounds a little like AC

Again, same point. /.'s Anonymous Coward may be an original implementation, but GUESS WHAT. It's not a coincidence that it sounds like Anonymous. It's not a word that was spontaneously invented for the internet. /. didn't just pull it out of thin air.

IT. IS. A. WORD.

I apologize, now, for venting my frustration at you. Don't take it personally.

But discussion of Anonymous as if 'he' were an individual is a joke, just another meme. Just look at the last shot in the video, which I think sums it up. It's another mock-up of an inspirational poster, reading:

"ANONYMOUS - because none of us are as cruel as all of us"

As an "amateur psychologist and observer of human nature", I hope you an understand its meaning- the mob mentality of high-traffic message boards (which are nevertheless out of the mainstream), combined with the relative unimportance of an individual's identity in that environment, results in a higher tendency for unreasonable aggression. Some 'sophisticated thinker' took the time to make it into a joke.

Re:They did bring us HP7...

[MostAwesomeDude]

it was actually LueLinks that leaked them out.

Sheesh, why must LLers always be anonymous outside of LL? Anyway, yes. The leak was originally from a user on www.luelinks.net, who obtained an advance copy from a friend working at a bookstore. He then proceeded to take photos of every single page and leaked them to LL. The LL community then introduced them to 4chan on /b/, and 4chan went ahead and attempted to frame Gaia Online and eBaum's World for the leak and subsequent spoilers.

Re:/b/ raids?

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

WTF? Rules 1 and 2, assholes.

I'm a victom too!

[svunt]

You people laugh all you want...I've been in hiding now for six months, after receiving credible threats from the terrorist group "LOLCATS"