Anonymous and K-pop stans strike again! Swamp facist #QAnon and #WWG1WGA hashtags overwhelming them
Anonymous, the collective known for its hacking exploits re-emerged over a week ago as the George Floyd protests spread across the nation. The "hacktivists", as they describe themselves, have no formal identity besides the Guy Fawkes mask that they brandish as their public face. However, they have managed to wreak digital havoc with some shocking revelations and basic, effective attacks on police department websites in the wake of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
Anonymous rose to social media attention over a decade ago, and are credited for attacking the CIA, PayPal, Sony and a myriad of government websites, protesting and allying with the public for issues central to their concern. So, if you're on Twitter right now, you have obviously noticed the sudden swarm of K-pop videos dominating your feed under odd hashtags and have been trying to decipher what exactly is going on.
To break it down to you, Anonymous tweeted the following via their handle @YourAnonCentral, earlier today: "Report from the battle: Autonomous #OpFanCam troops have begun a blitzkrieg on the #Qaṇöṇ hashtag in retaliation for spreading false information and anti-Black Lives Matter messages. Troops are requested to target the following fascist tags as well: #Qanon #WWG1WGA". Yes, they seem like a random garble of letters put together that people are calling out for racism, however, there's more to it than that. Anonymous exposed QAnon of attempting to use a made-up hashtag to spread misinformation about Black Lives Matter coupled with anti-Black Lives Matter messages.
QAnon is an extremist right-wing group, an ardent fan-following of President Trump that believes in a conspiracy theory which entails that there is a hidden, secret government within the existing federal government or the "deep state". QAnon presumes that this hidden government has some kind of set-up or a sinister plot working against Trump and his supporters.
As of the #WWG1WGA hashtag, QAnon members have been tweeting and trending it to signify unification amongst themselves. It stands for "Where We Go One, We Go All". QAnon has only manifested itself as a group of white supremacists and absolutely terrible human beings, so far. They are of the opinion that people like Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton and some celebrities are all involved in this plot against Trump and the government. The theory allegedly started out when a member claimed that they had "classified documents" that proved "liberal Hollywood" and other agents are conspiring against Trump, and are part of the "deep state". Again, it is just baseless and unfounded right-wing claims of misinformation that can be dangerous if it spreads around and people start believing it.
But here's the good part. The hashtag isn't exactly trending because of QAnon's desperate efforts, even though it technically was started by them. The #WWG1WGA movement was basically hacked by Anonymous, almost immediately when it started, and they called out the racists that thought they had done something by establishing a "code" of sorts to communicate with their members. On June 2, following #BlackoutTuesday in which social media "blacked out" as a commemoration fo the Black Lives Matter movement as well as justice for George Floyd, white supremacists group tried to counter the movement with their own hashtag, #WhiteLivesMatter.
Soon after, the K-pop community on Twitter took the platform by storm by trolling white supremacists with their own hashtag. K-pop stans hijacked the racist hashtag and flooded it with images and videos of their favorite K-pop idols, effectively displaying a united front and allying themselves with the BLM movement. Later Anonymous took to their handle to reveal that the unique protest, incorporating K-pop Fancams was spearheaded by the hacker collective's Anonymous K-pop division #OpFanCam. It also pointed out two other hashtags that went viral because of the same movement — #WhiteoutWednesday and #BlueLivesMatter that saw an influx of K-pop content. Anonymous really had a comrade in the K-Pop community who actually exposed #WWG1WGA and #QAnon and Twitterati hailed them as heroes.