Anonymous set for KKK 'unmasking'
The hacker group Anonymous on Thursday is poised to release the names of 1,000 people that it says are members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
The data dump, if authentic, could help boost the image of Anonymous, a loosely affiliated anarchist collective that has come under fire for leaking inaccurate information and failing to control its “members.”
Anonymous was widely panned during last year’s unrest in Ferguson, Mo., for outing the wrong police officer in the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown. The falsely accused officer received death threats.
Even in the run-up to Thursday’s KKK “unmasking,” Anonymous has been on the defensive, scrambling to distance itself from a widely discredited early leak of supposed KKK members that included several U.S. senators and mayors.
“Their ability to accept anyone and everything is both a strength and a weakness,” said Gabriella Coleman, an anthropologist who wrote a book about Anonymous. “And this is one the weaknesses playing out in real time.”
“If it delivers [on Thursday], I think Anonymous can bounce back from this,” Coleman said. “If they don’t deliver … why were they hyping something up when they didn’t even have anything in the first place?”
(continued, this'll make or break the men behind the masks...one lot of masks or another...)
