Anonymous – Cyber Robin Hood or Invisible Hand

Feb 23

posted by Dr. Maria Petrescu in Ethics | 11 Comments

Let the market decide. Let the market regulate itself. Let the invisible hand deal with the free market. All these ideas, coming all the way from Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and many other supporters of a free, deregulated market are brought into question especially when governments and justice fail.  However, despite the benefits of this doctrine for the free market, it seems to be much easier for companies or for other organizations to organize in the purpose of unethical (and sometimes illegal) activities, than the civil society or the consumer. Of course, due to the Internet, consumers have a much louder voice when it comes to sanctioning unethical behavior, with social media, viral videos, tweets and reviews. However, there is still a limited amount of pressure that can be generated against decisions from giant companies who are more or less close to a market monopoly position, such as TV cable companies. Even less power has the civil society against, for example, terrorist organizations.

In this context, the cyber-activism and hacking group Anonymous, brought into attention by the dreadful attacks in Paris, represents an interesting topic of study and reflection.  Known more for attacks on governmental agencies around the world and their support for Wikileaks, they recently announced war on terrorism in support of Charlie Hebdo and freedom of speech, and an initiative of taking down websites supporting terrorist activities. It represents a major attempt of organized action of the civil society against terrorism, a cyber-activism strategy on responding with concrete actions to extremism.

There is, nevertheless, another side to Anonymous and its increasing role in letting the market decide. While less known, they also organized attacks on several major companies, such as PayPal, MasterCard and Visa. Can this organization represent a way for the civil society, for consumers, to participate in a more active way in regulating the market? Could Anonymous be a way for consumers to respond with efficient tools to businesses’ unethical decisions? Is Anonymous a modern day, cyber Robin Hood, an online invisible hand not only for social, but also economic activism? Let the market decide.

Maria Petrescu, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Marketing in the H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship, Nova Southeastern University. She can be reached at mpetresc@nova.edu; http://www.huizenga.nova.edu/Faculty.cfm/mpetresc/Biography 

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• #1 by DE on 2/26/15 - 8:35 AM

  

  The Anonymous group is not a robin hood but just a group of like minded people representing for the people. I think the group attacks in most cases are justifiable, at least the ones I am aware of. I have never come across an attack that I felt was in a individual interest. With so much corruption and unethical behavior in the world of commerce, politics and business I find the presence of the group welcoming. Things are out of balance and in the polarity we exist in daily, there has to be a counter energy to level out the constant unethical scenarios, we the people can be faced with. The people have to be responsible for the domicile attitude about the conditions, we experience. If we want to correct the public, it must come from us since we are the creators and contributors to it. Sounds like Anonymous is doing simply that.

• #2 by Maria Petrescu on 2/26/15 - 10:57 AM

  

  DE, do you think this is a way for citizens to sanction corruption and unethical behavior without waiting for the Law to intervene? Is it a way to help regular individuals and fight the bad guys?

• #3 by Evenson Dufour on 2/26/15 - 1:54 PM

  

  Adam Smith’s ideas regarding free economy didn’t come by chance. He observed that the world economic system was systematically under the control of governments. He thought moving governments away from deciding on economic system or structure would give freedom to the people, and they would be able to put in evidence their self-fullest potential to reach their economic goals. Adam thought free market would create a better economic situation worldwide: free trade capitalism where all economies would win. Perhaps Adam didn't think about the unethical issues that would rise up in free market where government only reason would be to only provide protection. When businesses perceived that they have the power to act for their best interests, sometimes they would lose the ability distinguishing extreme unethical decisions in order to satisfy their greed. With governments regulated the markets when countries in the world stated trading, there was never equality among people; likewise, after the introduction of free market system, still everyone is not equal. With all respect for Adam Smith, our advance contemporary sense indicates that no matter what economic system we adopt, governments systematically regulate the market at certain levels. Why I come up with such assertion? Either on people or businesses, government still holds the power of supervision and ready to use legal power to control unethical behavior. Government can’t immorally protect fraudulent business practices based on its justifiable force or power. Now my questions are: is the invisible hand proclaimed by Adam S. really 100% invisible? Is the power of decision given to the market not basically still under the supervision of government? Can the market regulate itself while apparently there is no regulation? Can the market supervise itself in a way that would avoid global economic downturn, unethical actions, and immoral negligence factors?
  Internet consumers nowadays are exercising their power of freedom of speech at a totally different level than 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries with the blessing of swift cyber or web revolution. Nevertheless, there is difference between power of speech and power of making decision. In this current globalization, powerful companies still using the power of making decision to orientate the market, cover unethical business behavior, and negligence.
  Cyber-activism and hacking group ‘Anonymous’ that are continuously attacking governmental agencies to purposefully digging for truth or for pressing governments to be more transparent are not the best answers to promote freer market. Civil society groups or organized movements should not act more unethical than the unscrupulous ones. If a group in the civil society is ruinously more unethical than the depraved violators, the solution from the civil society group would not be universally accepted. That is where the dilemma stands. Even if Anonymous group does want the market to not binding by government’s regulations, nothing makes it rational for these types of civilian groups to breach the laws in order to get crucial governmental information. So, where are the traditional virtues and social responsibilities in all of that? If in our social contract we accept to give some of our freedoms so that government can ensure a better or fairer society, it would not be bad if the market gives some of its freedoms to the governments so that more risks can be mitigated for the best interest of all societies.

• #4 by Maria Petrescu on 2/27/15 - 11:39 AM

  

  Evenson, very interesting comments. Do you think the illegal way in which this organization operates and their non-communication with authorities negatively affects their actions?

• #5 by Evenson Dufour on 2/28/15 - 12:22 PM

  

  Yes, Prof. Maria, if an organization operates under the shadow with authorities, and adopts unethical behaviors and practices, its actions are anything else than something that would not have universal priori recognition, credence, and approval. Most of us would say because the anonymous group is attacking terrorist websites, is indeed a good thing. But the catch of that is: if the group is acting as an entity that has the same power as government, that would to a certain degree make the moral duty for government to provide security or protection irrelevant. The problem with such way a civil organization conducts itself is that it neglects the social contract leading to organized society. Moreover, it would be consider as an additional non-state actor attacking the government potentiality at a different level, or fulfilling the duty attributed to the government.

• #6 by DE on 3/1/15 - 9:12 PM

  

  RE: DE, do you think this is a way for citizens to sanction corruption and unethical behavior without waiting for the Law to intervene? Is it a way to help regular individuals and fight the bad guys?
  
  I personally think the people that are drawn to this group or supporters of it do not see intervention by the law as dependable and understand the truth that it is us, the people that must monitor ourselves and one another. That was the original purpose of creating government and public servants but it has become corporate and not as beneficial due to infiltration. Therefore, we the people, again must find alternate solutions to help those few officials that get outnumbered in doing what is right for the people. Anonymous is balancing the scale.

• #7 by C.Oppel on 11/4/15 - 4:11 PM

  

  I believe that groups like Anonymous have the justifiability to act as a superpower in today´s business world. As long as they do not harm anybody and do not release too sensitive data to the publicity, they act in my opinion with Organizational Citizen Behavior, if we look at the entire market as an organization. Often a normal consumer does not really has a choice between company A or B, or has a lack of information, that company C is lying to their customers, e.g. about the Fair Trade ingredients which they use to produce a product or to receive a specific label.

• #8 by Blanca Carreras on 11/5/15 - 10:12 PM

  

  I have heard about and seen video from anonymous and for some reason they always intrigue me and grab my attention. I like the way they try to expose people, and companies. I feel that they do so to open our eyes and stick up for us in a way. However, I do feel that they are intimidating, I feel that they might be violent. They are basically cyber violent, if there is such a thing. Thanks for posting, it was pretty interesting to read about your opinion on anonymous.

• #9 by Ben on 11/6/15 - 4:23 PM

  

  These anonymous groups that go around being cyber Robin Hood has its pros and cons depending on what the group is doing. Some of these attacks that has been against a company has affected many clients/customers and information getting exposed to underground activities. Thousands of peoples information is now in hackers hands due to these anonymous groups hacking into major corporations. On the other hand, we can agree that companies like tv cable companies are getting close to being in a monopoly position. These companies have no stop and who knows what they will end up doing in the future. Although lets say these groups are trying their best from preventing this from happening, it will happen sooner or later unless the government gets involved in this demolition.

• #10 by Christopher Ramirez on 1/15/16 - 2:29 PM

  

  Generally, I have been a supporter for the global hacking organization Anonymous. The consumers of any market are susceptible to abuse through monopolization, misuse of government resources, and terrorism aided by technology. Anonymous could be considered a private cyber police force even though they have been labeled as a cyber terrorist organization. Freezing the bank accounts of the Ghana government, shutting down the servers of Sony's Playstation 3 gaming system and ruining ISIS recruitment websites have been checks on the market. I think of Anonymous as the white blood cells of the market. So long as nothing negative occurs, they do not mobilize their resources to treat the sickness jamming the free market or free world.
  
  I don't agree with all of their methods, but their actions are no different than the CIA or other Intelligence Agencies that rely on espionage, sabotage, and cyber warfare to protect the interests of a government. Anonymous' protects the people like a government, even the ones who are unaffected. Unfortunately, they are not perfect and some of their attacks although in the interest of the people have damaged some people as well. To be more specific, Anonomous' activities have been notorious for compromising the private information of individuals leading to varying levels of identity theft.

• #11 by Allyson Robbins on 1/15/16 - 11:02 PM

  

  How interesting! I didn't know about the attacks on Paypal, Mastercard and Visa. Is this a way for consumers to actually have a direct input on the economic/unethical decisions of these companies that interact with us and our money on a daily basis. Taking control of our finances and punishing the companies when they have mistreated their customers is important, as money is so crucial to everyones livelihood.