Anonymous Superthread

Anonymous are not the good guys. They don't have the right to violate the personal privacy of people that they don't like, or to break into government files and release information to the public. They don't get to decide that, and we should not treat them as anything more than criminals for doing it.

No one is the good guys, Good and Evil is a Point of view (I vomitted) so saying good/evil when talking about something will do nothing but start a Moral debate.

There is, however, a certain set of rules which society has deemed to be a good representation of right and wrong. Anonymous violated them.

As Feybart said, they both are in the wrong so it cancels out there are no good/bad guys in this scenario.

Not really, the actions after the MegaUpload weren't good in any way. The people that were arrested were breaking the law, and were arrested because they did. Not to mention the end doesn't justify the means.

Well, we could pretend that nothing means anything and that nobody can know what's right, but doing that is a complete and utter waste of time. If you absolve everyone of moral responsibility, it doesn't actually absolve anyone of moral responsibility. Deal in your spectrum of gray all you like, but in reality you're only dancing around semantics.

The facts remain: Anonymous consistently breaks the law for their own self-righteous ends, and people like you praise them for it. You can avoid calling them the "good guys" if you want, but you're clearly apologizing on their behalf and consider what they are doing to be commendable.

Do I have to pull out Ye Olde Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right. Too late, I already did.

"You're a traitor and a war criminal."
"Those are the only names that the state has for the revolutionaries."

Anonymous has gone far beyond protesting. I mean, when the Occupy protesters were legally protesting, they're heroes, and the police are always in the wrong no matter what they do, yet Anonymous break laws and are called heroes as well? Anonymous are as much protesters as those rioters in Manchester and London were.

And Anonymous broke into systems and stole private and potentially harmful information, which is as bad, if not worse. Most of the protests against SOPA and PIPA already worked, without any actions from Anonymous. Wikipedia going down had much more effect. And against the MegaUpload actions their actions were unjust. There was nothing wrong with the arrests themselves, and thus there's no reason to protest (even though it's more like vandalism) against them.

While they might have good intentions, as I said earlier, the end doesn't justify the means. They've broken the law, I haven't (I don't know about you, but I assume you haven't either). I have yet to learn the capacities to hack into systems, although personal management (I think that's what it's called...damnit, I had a lunchtime lecture on this!) can get you quite far. Anyway, they are not like you and me, as they've broken the law, and thus are criminals. It's very simple.