Devil's Advocate

"Backtrace threatens Anonymous operatives" (TG Daily, Mar 18th 2011)

I sincerely hope Backtrace's Hubris is zero itself, or he'll go down faster than he can reboot his servers. As a former member himself, he should know better than anyone that Anonymous takes no prisoners - they do not forgive, and they do not forget. Or need we remind him that Anonymous has Stuxnet under their control? Never mind the fact that they are legion.

But I'm not just here to defend Anonymous - they can handle themselves, even if Hubris does manage to take a couple of "prominent" Anons down with him. No, I'm here to criticize Backtrace. Crusaders seeking to take down Anonymous have been plenty (and all have failed, by the way), ranging from furries to the Church of Scientology, but they all had more or less understandable - if not just - reasons for challenging the "final boss" of the Internet. Backtrace, on the other hand, is seeking Anonymous's downfall for a very backwards purpose: they want to reform Anonymous, returning it to its old identity as a pack of tasteless pranksters. Backtrace is literally praising the shallow, destructive humor of the "old" Anonymous, claiming that this should be their identity rather than that of a pack of potential freedom fighters.

Again, I don't mean to directly defend Anonymous; the dark humor Backtrace seems to favor is still fully evident within the Anonymous stronghold of 4chan, and many of them are truly disgusting individuals. But wouldn't we rather see them at least trying to accomplish something in the world, rather than whiling away meaninglessly like so many other people already do? What's honestly worse - the activist vigilantes with a twisted sense of humor, or the vigilantes who are activists for said twisted humor?

If this is seriously what society has come to - advocating a cause that literally seeks to worsen another cause - then I just don't know what to think.