Rhizome Experiment, Fall 2015

Hacktivism

As different surveillance programs and companies try to seize control of and take advantage of Internet activity, there is a backlash in the online realm. Technology is heavily ingrained in people’s lives and opposition to this threat has become rampant. Hacktivism is the action taken attempting to shed light on the practices of these agencies which violent personal privacy. They are seeking to take alter the power dynamic in terms of technology, putting it back in the control of the individual. With the role and abilities of technology able to change the idea of tech determinism also breaks down. Clearly The goal is to achieve freedom from this haunting of technology and undermines conventional social controls. Through the success of hacktivism, the ability to control the virtual self without consequence or limitation will be restored. Furthermore the sense of constant monitoring will no longer prevail. Trying to obtain this freedom equalizes the public entity, extending horizontal connections between people of all different backgrounds, socio-economic statuses, cultures and anyone that engages in activities online and creating these social relationships. Additionally the idea of techne holds partially true in that it facilitates the unlikely bond between many diverse people. In keeping with this idea, Gabriella Coleman’s “Anonymous – From the Lulz to Collective Action,” she describes Anonymous as having “no leaders, no hierarchical structures, nor any geographical epicenter. While there are forms of organization and cultural logics that undeniably shape its multiple expressions, it is a name that any individual or groups can take on as their own” (2, Coleman). Beginning from small-scale online pranks, Anonymous has grown into an established, online political activist group, a more direct and technologically capable extension of the type of activism Antonio describes. An entire community of people who believe in the freedom of technology and use of the Internet as well as the freedom of individual privacy has converged and consolidates. Peter Ludlow wrote an article entitled, “Wikileaks and Hacktivist Culture” outlining how WikiLeaks is “the product of decades of collaborative work by people engaged in applying computer hacking to political causes, in particular, to the principle that information-hoarding is evil” (25, Ludlowe). The movement to attain freedom of information is still gaining momentum and is difficult to stop because not only will the information continue to proliferate, but also because this is a cause applicable to a wide array of people willing to take a stand. Surveillance policies and programs are restrictions placed on the expression of self and hacktivism is a method of breaking free from those limitations and the haunting that goes along with it. 

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