Throughout the five days of tragedy in Boston, citizens around the globe were glued less to their TV screens for up-to-date information than to Twitter. Anonymous, the online hacking group veiled in secrecy, featured up-to-date information and leaks before many news outlets. Stemming from the success its coverage achieved, Anonymous has announced plans to create its own news website. On Tuesday, Anonymous set up a user account on the popular crowd-sourcing, fundraising site indiegogo.
The group initially sought $2,000 to complete its project and set up servers; by Wednesday afternoon its had raised over $50,000 to fund the construction and implementation of the "Your Anon News" site. Anonymous has been very active of late, both with its groundbreaking coverage of the Boston Marathon and its call for an Internet blackout to protest the recently proposed CISPA bill.
Throughout the coverage of the Boston Marathon tragedy, Anonymous relied on real time news updates from everyday citizens, not the major news outlets' cycle. Anonymous hopes this practice will continue and create a site that "provide feeds for citizen journalists who livestream events as they are taking place, instead of the 10-second sound bites provided by the corporate media."
According to the indiegogo fundraising page, Anonymous spoke of hoping to change the celebrity, political and gossip-filled news cycle that has become the norm in society. Anonymous states its goal as to "disseminate information we viewed as vital, separating it from the political and celebrity gossip than inundates the mainstream. We haven't had a space to provide a proper forum for our many contributors and talented supporters. We love the live streamers that provide YAN with first-hand reporting and the independent journalists whose voices often unheard, but we aren't supporting them the way we should. We're here to change that."
Judging by the early success of the majority of its platforms, the Internet underground could rally around the upcoming news site. Anonymous hopes that the new website will allow it to "expand [their] capabilities ... to report, not just aggregate, the news."
