Ongoing story at JoeMyGod:
1)Hacking group tells Westboro Baptist Church to reel in the hatred, or they'll make their website crash.
2) WBC tells hacking group to "bring it on"
3) WBC website crashes!
As you might have guessed from the title, I'm overjoyed!
Okay, some backstory. the Westboro Baptist Church are the right-wing church in the American deep south who brought you such joyous rhetoric as "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers". They spend their time spreading the message that gays, Muslims, Swedes, Canadians, most Americans, Jews, non-Christians, Catholics, Protestants- essentially everyone who isn't involved with their own church- is evil and going to hell. They've decided that the John 3:16 applies only to them, and everyone else is hated by God.
I hadn't heard of the hacking group, Anonymous, before, but they're basically a group of computer nerds with morals who use their abilities to crash the websites of unethical and/or hateful organisations. And apparently, the WBC were the next on their list.
Now, I know I believe in freedom of speech and everything, but I don't think this is a FOS issue. Anonymous aren't the government. They're not oppressing Westboro, they're pranking them in response to the hate they spew. It's especially good because the WBC assume that nothing bad can happen to them ever ever ever, because God protects them from all the "sinful". Hopefully this will be a wake-up call for them.
Oh, and their other major site, http://www.godhatestheworld.com/, seems to have gone down as well. This is fantastic!
Getting one over the Giant Tentacles of Homophobia is always a thing to celebrate. Let's dance to our latest "gay anthem!"
It's such a tough balance between standing against hatred and the practise of freedom of speech. Hacking is always wrong, as is preaching hatred; some good will come from this eventually.
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