Anonymous
The Internet group Anonymous has frequently made headlines in the past few months due to its hacking activities online as well as its protests in real life. Despite being known as a loose, de-centralized body, the group has proven itself to be capable of organizing mass actions on- and off-line and spreading information through the weak ties among its members and by taking advantage of the structure of social networks on the Internet. One of the major actions of Anonymous involves protesting against the Church of Scientology in a movement known as Project Scientology. This project started as an objection to the Church attempts to remove parts of a Tom Cruise interview and eventually shifted to an attack against the Church and its censorship attempts as a whole. Part of what makes the project so interesting to me is that its popularity can be followed through the internet and watched in real life.
Underwood and Welser’s paper discusses Anonymous’s network structure during “Project Chanology”, noting that the low density of the network (as described in a 2000 paper by M.S-K. Chwe: http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.cornell.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ecn&AN=0514487&site=ehost-live) allowed for rapid coordination of Anonymous’s members. It presents a model of the network based on a central hub with initial few connecting cells that are nevertheless connected to many other cells, and explains how it works:
“A proposal for a theme for upcoming protests is made at a hub site. Several individuals from different cells see this proposal and relay it to those within their respective cells. Individuals within cells turn to those to whom they are immediately connected to gauge the level of support for the proposed action. Once a sufficient proportion of cell members become early adopters and endorse the proposed action, other members within the cells agree to participate as well. These cells indicate their acceptance of the proposal through the hub or through direct connections to other cell members.
As the overall level of support for adoption grows, individuals within other cells are more likely to become early adopters and endorse the action, leading to other individuals within those respective cells endorsing the action as well. This process is self-reinforcing and accelerates as more and more cells agree to the action. As this example demonstrates, a decentralized cell like structure like the one observed in Chanology can maximize the spread of agreement to participate in a given action and, in doing so, permit extremely rapid coordination.”
This model for how ideas within Anonymous are spread incorporates ideas from both network structures (the cells as nodes and their connections as edges) and game theory (the costs and payoffs of participants in the nodes to continue to spread the information). Due to the attitude of Anonymous (everything is open and done “for the lulz” – i.e. for laughs), participation by new members (or non-members) seems to have few societal costs and good payoffs (in the form of having fun), leading to increasing popularity. In addition, the structure of the web itself – with most sites linking to at least a few others, facilitating the quick spread of ideas – ensures that the information will continue to reach new eyes and ears.