Anonymous Denies Plans to Take Down Facebook

Anonymous on Monday denied that it was planning to take down Facebook on Jan. 28.

"Again we must say that we will not attack #Facebook! Again the mass media lie," the group tweeted from the @AnonOps feed.

News of a Facebook attack got started earlier today when individuals claiming to be part of Anonymous posted a YouTube video (below) that called on supporters to target the social network on Jan. 28 at midnight Eastern time.

"An online war has begun between Anonymous, the people, and the government of the United States," the video narrator says. "While SOPA and PIPA may be postponed from Congress, this does not guarantee that our Internet rights will be upheld."

The video goes on to say that taking down Facebook would be the "greatest Internet protest and first official cyber war." The voice scoffs at the idea that Facebook is too big to destroy. "While it is true that Facebook has at least 60,000 servers, it is still possible to take it down."

The video also tells viewers that "there is no way you can get caught. Hundreds of thousands of us ... will all be participating. They cannot take down that large of a group."

Whether or not that is actually true – Anonymous members arrested last year might beg to differ – the whole effort appears to be a hoax, or at least organized by a small faction of the hacker collective. Web watchers have cause to be skeptical; last year, a Twitter account emerged and vowed to take down the social network on Nov. 5, or Guy Fawkes Day. But that effort fizzled, with the organizers eventually admitting that such an undertaking was not realistic.

Today's video is a bit odd, meanwhile, because Facebook actually came out against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), albeit a bit later than others.

The video did, however, mention a few recent attacks for which Anonymous has taken responsibility, including this weekend's attack on CBS.com and other sites in protest of the Megaupload shutdown, and hacks of Polish government Web sites in opposition to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

ACTA is a proposed framework that would institute new international standards regarding intellectual property and the measures used to enforce their protection. In October, major nations including the U.S., Japan, Australia, Canada, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea agreed to move forward with the proposal.

ACTA is, in fact, the center of attention on the @AnonOps Twitter feed today, not a Facebook shutdown. Just as they did after the Megaupload takedown, Anonymous again targeted Justice.gov this afternoon over the trade agreement and called on supporters to "spread awareness and get the word out on ACTA."