In a video statement carried recently by several official channels maintained by members of the hacker activist group “Anonymous,” a digitally generated voice explains that the online collective has decided to take down the Fox News website on Nov. 5th of this year.
The date, Nov. 5, is significant for its dramatic placement in the film and comic book “V for Vendetta,” about a freedom-loving terrorist who destroys an authoritarian government that’s come to power in the U.K. “Remember, remember the 5th of November,” is his saying, hearkening back to the “Gunpowder plot” of 1604, in which the terrorist Guy Fawkes was captured and executed for his attempt to blow up Parliament.
To mark this 5th of November, the latest “Anonymous” video points to the network’s “continued propaganda against the occupations” as reason for vowing to “destroy the Fox News website.”
“Since they will not stop ridiculing the occupiers, we will simply shut them down,” the digitized voice explains, adding that an Anonymous-driven “propaganda campaign” against Fox News would follow.
“Fox News, your time has come,” it concludes. “Operation Fox Hunt. November 5th. May the hunt begin.”
Another ongoing “operation,” called “Operation Cashback,” is encouraging people to move their money from large banks to local credit unions.
Because of the nature of the group — whereas literally anyone could be “Anonymous” — it’s irresponsible to say whether this “Operation Fox Hunt” might even happen. And while “Operation Fox Hunt” does seem to fall in-line with many of the group’s stated political objectives in the past, the video also seems to exhibit a lower production value than prior legitimate “Anonymous” releases.
Still, for a group that’s wrecked shop everywhere from the Iranian and Tunisian governments to U.S. defense contractors Booz Allen Hamilton and HBGary, it’s also fair to say that anything’s possible.
This video was published to YouTube on Oct. 22, 2011.
