Anonymous withdraws support for WikiLeaks

Posted on Monday October 15, 2012 


WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has lost another high-profile supporter as Anonymous, the hacking collective, said the whistleblowing site had been “ruined by egos”.

Anonymous, a loose group of internet “hacktivists”, has been one of WikiLeaks’ closest allies during the past two years, launching cyber attacks against the site’s opponents and, some claim, becoming a source of its material.

...But leading Anonymous accounts on Twitter, which rallied behind WikiLeaks and Mr Assange despite his legal and financial woes, have now withdrawn their support, decrying the freedom-of-information project as a “One Man Julian Assange show”.

Calling the split “the end of an era”, Anonymous tweeted: “It was an awesome idea, ruined by egos.”

.....WikiLeaks this week erected a banner advertisement asking for donations before allowing visitors to access emails purportedly relating to Mitt Romney, the US presidential candidate, and its other archives. Anonymous described the move as “meretricious”.

The final straw for the shadowy group, which has also supported the Occupy Wall Street movement and the Arab Spring while at the same time attacking companies including Sony and News Corp, appears to have been Mr Assange’s dinner this week with pop star Lady Gaga.

“That’s great for him but not much of our interest,” Anonymous said. “We are more interested in transparent governments and bringing out documents and information they want to hide from the public.”

WikiLeaks responded on Twitter, saying: “Thank you for drawing attention to our donation campaign while we have high costs in military courts. Solidarity.” The tweet included a link to its donations page.........

(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...