One of the major reactions to the Boston marathon bombing occurred on the internet. Social media was especially rife with speculation over who the bombers were and why they committed those acts. One of the greater spectres that has loomed over the social media landscape in the past few years is the group called “Anonymous.” While the social media reaction to the Boston bombings might be unrelated to “Anonymous,” and instead constitute a spontaneous reaction to the event, it might still be useful to look at this group of internet users as a model for how social media participants might behave. “Anonymous” is known for being a loose association of unidentified individuals who use internet technology to carry out hacks on the web in the name of protest.
According to Gabriella Coleman (2012), “Anonymous” began on the internet forum 4chan, and grew from the culture on that site (paragraph 1). 4chan (n.d.) describes itself as “...[A] simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images.” (What is 4chan? section, para. 1) The site notes that the name “Anonymous” came from the moniker used to identify posters that did not choose to register an identity for posts on the site (Who is “Anonymous”? section, para. 1).
Anonymous does not have any formal structure or organization. In his paper, “Is it OK to Be an Anonymous?” Phillip Serracino-Inglott (2013) explores the organization of Anonymous. He says its “members” consist of a heterogeneous mix of computer hackers, activists and trouble-makers. All of these members range wildly in terms of level of expertise and experience. Participation in Anonymous activities even vary a great amount, with some participating in activities deeply, while others only lend a hand...
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...to the Boston bombings were a case of internet vigilantism is up for debate, and it’s unlikely that Anonymous itself had much involvement in the social media reaction to the bombings. According to Phillip Serracino-Inglott (2013), however “Anonymous are indeed vigilantes,” (p. 138). Even if vigilantism may not be part of the social media reaction to the Boston bombings, Anonymous is worth mentioning as a demonstration of how vigilantes might behave on the internet. They show how the internet allows unassociated people to unite together in reaction to major events. According to Serracio-Inglott (2013), Anonymous users make use of, and are perhaps even influenced by the various technologies they employ for their activities (p.228). Their participation in major political events makes them a notable factor when studying the internet reaction to these kinds of events.
“Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted” by Malcolm Gladwell is an article published in the Annals of Innovation, by The New Yorker magazine. Gladwell starts with an example of true activism. He opens the article with a depiction of how the Greensboro sit-ins contributed to the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. Then the author supplies two examples of protests that have taken place in recent years that some people have said were started and organized on Twitter. He then goes on to clarify why Twitter was not a factor in these events and how media and government can distort certain truths about social media’s role in protests. The author continues the article by explaining why communication and relationships were more efficient before the era of social media and then compares social networking from the past and now. He uses this strategy to illustrate social media’s effect on how we interact and our commitment towards one another. Gladwell goes on to explain the organization of activist groups of the past and its
The Tsarnaev brothers carry backpacks to two locations near the finish line on Boylston Street. Tamerlan, the older brother, placed his bomb near the finish line at 2:42 p.m. just seven minutes before the first blast. He placed the backpack so the lid of the pressure cooker faced the crowd to cause the most damage (Nova, 2013). Just four minutes before the first blast, the younger brother, Dzhokhar positioned his device near the Forum restaurant. At 2:50 p.m. the cheers turn to terror as the first blast rocked the crowd near the finish line and 10 seconds later, another blast only a block away in front of the Forum restaurant, devastated this annual event just four hours and ten minutes after the race began (Barrett, Shallwani, & Perez, 2013). After that blast, the injured are everywhere. Eight year old Martin Richard, 29 year old Krystle Campbell and 23 year old Lu Lingzi lost their lives that day, 14 others lost limbs. A total of 264 people were injured from the explosions (Bodden, 2014, p. 21). As the chaos was going on the Tsarnaev brothers calmly, but quickly, leave the scene. They had completed their dirty deed and probably thought they would get away with it.
A day that was supposed to be happy turned in seconds. People were injured or killed. Family members were devastated. The Boston Marathon was supposed to be a fun and exciting day for people watching and for the runners. We shouldn’t take every moment for granted, because you never know when it might be your last day or what we might consider "normal." April 15th 2013, will always be a day remembered in history.
What is the factor that unites the United States and what benefits comes from becoming a united nation? On April 15, 2013 the United States was united due to the tragic event that occurred in Boston that afternoon. The Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest marathon that is considered one of the most prestigious road-racing events in the world. Communities of the Boston area unite together to celebrate Patriots Day, during the Boston Marathon. The 117th annual marathon will go down in history as a terrorist attack. The event was eye opening and united the United States there were two hundred and sixty people who were injured that included life threatening and severe injuries as well as three casualties. Several photographs were captured that April afternoon that represent the horrific reactions of the marathon runners as well as the street officials. Photographer, Phillip Sherwell, captured an astonishing photo from a nearby building
In the essay “Where Anonymity Breeds Contempt” the author Julie Zhou demonstrates the negative impact Anonymity in the internet has had on human beings. Following with a convincing argument for unmasking these “trolls” of the internet.
Social media has a variety of platforms, allowing individuals to freely articulate their opinions to a large audience. This tool has it’s benefits as people can join together to raise awareness to certain matters but there is also a cruel downside to the public use of social media. In Jon Ronson’s article, “How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life”, he distinctly reveals that the use of social media for debate/dissent/social and political change brings together a large audience to improve our society in difference to trolling, bullying and public shaming where there is an outstanding victim looked down upon through a widespread of individuals. These two differences stem from the belief of one that they are informing an individual of their wrong doing they are in fact leading on a greater attack than intended. The concept behind“social media is so perfectly designed to manipulate
Historically, the Anonymous has been engaging in activities that qualifies the group as hacker group as opposed to troll organisation. The group began its operation on December 2010 by attacking the MasterCard for blocking the Wiki Leaks website donations (Coleman 1). In January 2011, the Anonymous group attack the Tunisian government website for using illegal means against protesters. In February...
The definition of a counter-culture, according to Merriam-Webster, is a culture with values and customs are very different from and usually opposed to those accepted by most of society. Anonymous is a loosely aligned group of “hacktivist”. A hacktivist is a person or group that hacks into a website or web entity for the purpose of exposing the group or getting revenge because of their disagreement with something about the group. Anonymous warned the Westbor...
Imagine you’re about to achieve your dream of completing the Boston Marathon, then “BOOM!” Everything goes black. The Boston Marathon Bombing occurred on April 15th, 2013. Two brothers planted two homemade bombs near the finish line. After the two explosions, three were left dead and more than 260 were injured. The bombers later on received major consequences for the pain, suffering, and financial damage they caused.
Edward Snowden uses the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings as his central example in regards to government oversight and mass surveillance failure. Prior to the bombings, Russian authorities had been tracking and monitoring the Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev and informed US officials about the brothers (Zetter). Even though the US had been tipped off by Russia two years before the bombings took place, the FBI only performed a cursory investigation, even though they knew the Tsarnaevs were involved with extremism; no follow up investigation was ever made (Deluca). After the attack had occurred, even with surveillance footage of the suspected brothers, facial-recognition software, and two government databases, authorities could not identify the Tsarnaevs. The watch lists, which should have notified authorities if suspects traveled abroad, likewise failed: the databases had misspelled the suspects’ names by a letter and had the wrong birthdates. Surveillance technology was unsuccessful: the NSA collected data on the Tsarnaevs before the bombing, but had not realized that it was more important than the data they collected on millions of others (Zetter).
The Boston Marathon is a tradition held annually on Patriots’ Day and it attracts hundreds of thousands of people to the 26 mile run from Hopkins, Massachusetts to Boston’s Back Bay Neighborhood. On April 15, 2013, the race was set to mark the 117th anniversary of the marathon. All was well until five hours into the race, Boston became the target of a terrorist attack when two bombs detonated 12 seconds apart from each other. The two bombs which had been placed inside backpacks containing pressure cookers that were filled with pellets and nails, were placed near the finish line where the crowd was watching the race (Boston Marathon bombing of 2013, 2014). The first bomb detonated on the north side of Boylston Street which was less than half a block from the finish line. The second bomb went off 12 seconds later about 600 feet from the first bomb.
In Stephens article, he tells how “Social media could serve as a source of live, raw information. It could summon people to the streets and coordinate their movements in real time. And it could swiftly push back against spurious media narratives with the force of a few thousand retweets”. He explains how technology can be used to push to change problems in our society and encourage us to get up and do something about it. Being able to use our capabilities if technology to fullest is “A huge reason for all this success is that, perhaps more than any other modern American protest movement, they’ve figured out how to marshal today’s tools”. In McKinnon’s explanation, she states how “To their credit, some companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook have joined forces with civil liberties groups in an attempt to persuade the Obama administration not to push anti-encryption measures that would enable government and law enforcement officials to access our secure communications”. This is goes with how technology can be used to make a difference just like what Stephen was saying in order to inform people on what’s going on. McKinnon explains how our social media servers have also taken a disagreement on invading our private lives. As it stands, any individual or
The prominence of social media and computer mediated interaction has lead to a rise in anonymous communications between individuals. Anonymity, in many online contexts, is seen as a negative attribute of the internet; where people are given the option to be awful and toxic to one another through comment threads or community forums. However, anonymity online offers the possibility for personal exploration and experimentation that is often unavailable in real life. Identity development, considered an essential part of adolescence, is made accessible to many through online spaces where individuals can take risks with reduced chance of physical harm. Similarly, the absence of identity that anonymity affords allows individuals the opportunity
This act hugely allows Anonymous to differentiate themselves from a more radical group such as the Weather Underground as they were intentionally seeking to use violence and intimidation through their movements in the pursuit of political aims. The work of Anonymous can still be defined as civil disobedience even when they do make mistakes since they do not adhere to straight violence but instead deliberate violation of the law for a greater purpose.
The 90's internet boom gave rise to new ways of writing in through access to cyberspace. What used to be printed or handwritten on physical surfaces such as paper, cardboard, or bulletin boards has changed to 0's and 1's, bits and bytes of digitized information that can be displayed thru the projections of computer screens. Moreover, the internet has made the process of publishing one's works, writing letters, or chatting with one another much easier and convenient for everyone around the globe. The internet became a universal tool, giving much freedom and flexibility to the users; it gave them opportunity to deliver their thoughts with little or no restrictions. Since it's impossible to regulate all cyber-activities, internet users are often unrestricted by the normal laws or authorities that would set boundaries around the various online transactions. More importantly, the fact that a net user can take on different identities in cyberspace brings about several ethical and social issues. These anonymous and unrestrictive characteristics of cyberspace often permite abusive users to easily involve themselves in serious cybercrimes such as cyberstalking, cyber-rape, and cyber-harassment through chatting services, emails, cyber communities, and other online communication.