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http://www.businessinsider.com/anonymous-facebook-2011-8

Hacktivist group Anonymous, which has been responsible for cyber-attacks on the Pentagon, News Corp, and others, has vowed to destroy Facebook on November 5th (which should ring a bell).

Citing privacy concerns and the difficulty involved in deleting a Facebook account, Anonymous hopes to "kill Facebook," the "medium of communication [we] all so dearly adore."
This isn't the first time Anonymous has spoken out against social networks.
After Google removed Anonymous' Gmail and Google+ accounts, Anonymous pledged to create its own social network, called AnonPlus.
The full text of the announcement, made on YouTube and reported by Village Voice, is below:

Operation Facebook

DATE: November 5, 2011.​

TARGET: https://facebook.com

Press:
Twitter : https://twitter.com/OP_Facebook
http://piratepad.net/YCPcpwrl09
Irc.Anonops.Li #OpFaceBook
Message:

Attention citizens of the world,

We wish to get your attention, hoping you heed the warnings as follows:
Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed. If you are a willing hacktivist or a guy who just wants to protect the freedom of information then join the cause and kill facebook for the sake of your own privacy.

Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria.

Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your "privacy" settings, and deleting your account is impossible, even if you "delete" your account, all your personal info stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time. Changing the privacy settings to make your Facebook account more "private" is also a delusion. Facebook knows more about you than your family. http://www.physorg.com/news170614271.htmlhttp://itgrunts.com/2010/10/07/facebook-steals-numbers-and-data-from-your-iph....

You cannot hide from the reality in which you, the people of the internet, live in. Facebook is the opposite of the Antisec cause. You are not safe from them nor from any government. One day you will look back on this and realise what we have done here is right, you will thank the rulers of the internet, we are not harming you but saving you.

The riots are underway. It is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It is a battle for choice and informed consent. It's unfolding because people are being raped, tickled, molested, and confused into doing things where they don't understand the consequences. Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely false. It gives users the illusion of and hides the details away from them "for their own good" while they then make millions off of you. When a service is "free," it really means they're making money off of you and your information.

Think for a while and prepare for a day that will go down in history. November 5 2011, #opfacebook . Engaged.

This is our world now. We exist without nationality, without religious bias. We have the right to not be surveilled, not be stalked, and not be used for profit. We have the right to not live as slaves.

We are anonymous
We are legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us​

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/anonymous-facebook-2011-8#ixzz1UaPRleWA

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I'm totally ambivalent towards facebook due to an incident that happened a couple of years ago that caused me to "deactivate" my account. But it's a megabillion dollar business, and will likely pose a heckuva challenge.

Yeah! Just like they destroyed Scientology! And NewsCorp! AND THE PENTAGON. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeeeeeah.

It's not that I have some particular love of Facebook, and I don't care if they do succeed, honestly, but I'm skeptical.

"All hat and no cattle."

If they truly wanted to shut facebook down in order to help people, they would simply do it.

If they wanted a lot of press, and they wanted to get people's attention, and they don't actually want to do the work, but instead scare people, then they would make a press release.

What steinman said.

They tried to kill Amazon before too, didn't work out too well because Amazon's servers are too big. I imagine Facebook will be similar.

+1

Pfft. And double pfft.

I've got a quarter that says they move on to the next shiny long before November.

They really are dumb little children, aren't they?

They huff and puff and get the media and the internets all in a tizzy for a news cycle, but in the end that's all they accomplish.

If the "suceeded" don't they realize that fb probably keeps hardcopies that are on an intranet that isn't accessible from the outside in case that eventuality happens? If they were smart anyway

Dei said:

They tried to kill Amazon before too, didn't work out too well because Amazon's servers are too big. I imagine Facebook will be similar.

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I don't know about FB.

Amazon has spent many years building a redundant network that can handle millions of hits in a short period of time (which is basically similar to a DDoS attack - which is how Anon tried to take Amazon down). Basically every Black Friday Amazon does its best to crash itself. 3-4 years ago they had 100 Xbox 360's for $100 (yes - 100 total) & it was first come, first served. I hit refresh at 11:59:45 & my screen did not reload until 1:30 that afternoon.

Not sure FB has that strong of an infrastructure.

If they manage to get fb to hiccup for a few hours, they will have called it a success. They don't actually mean that they will destroy the company or service permanently.

Keep in mind that if you actually want to force effectual change, this is probably the way to do it - what they are essentially complaining about is:

- Facebook does not remove data from its databases, even if you ask for deletion
- Facebook cooperates with oppressive regimes, providing private data without due process

They aren't wrong - these are bad things. Taking FB down for a few hours would get them a lot of attention, but announcing it beforehand, and talling FB why they are going to do it gives FB time to change their policy, and if anon gets enough attention without having to do the actual work that FB changes their policy, then anon wins, and, incidentally, so do FB users.

So while I don't agree with their methods (using force to cause change) I don't think they can be easily compared to children or playground bullies.

the whole Anon Social Network has me puzzled...

How do you differentiate between 1,000's of anonymous people?

Anonymous, in this case, doesn't mean that individual members have no identity - it merely means that they have the freedom to have as many, or as few, identities as they like. Most keep their online persona completely separate from their offline persona.

Notably, however, they didn't make this release through all the usual channels, and it appears that only a portion of "Anon" are actually in agreement with the action. This isn't abnormal for this type of effort - there's always internal factions, but I don't think you can say that "Anon" is going to destroy facebook and think that everyone that participates in general anon stuff is actually going to help move this project forward.

sixpackshaker said:

the whole Anon Social Network has me puzzled...

How do you differentiate between 1,000's of anonymous people?

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I thought it was called /b

It was, until someone in /b figured out that the majority of /b'ers were sheep, and one could generate anger and then direct it rather easily.

That directed anger is called anon.