It seems I can't get wikis off my mind these days. And it's not just because of that juicy story about Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and his one night stand from Hell, Rachel Marsden.
Just last month WikiLeaks.org was all over the blogosphere after Swiss bankers tried to pull the plug on the site for anonymous whistle blowers. These days, WikiLeaks is posting videos of protests in Tibet that were censored by the Chinese government -- a bit more important (and closer to the site's primary mission) than exposing the dirty money launderers of the Cayman Islands.
Anonymous collectives like WikiLeaks are proving themselves to be excellent weapons in battling bullies and confronting tyranny, from China to Clearwater, Florida. Today's case in point: Anonymous vs. the Church of Scientology. Anonymous is a wiki that decided to take on the CoS after the organization tried (and failed) to erase the infamous Tom Cruise video from the Net. In January it launched a DDOS attack against the church's Web sites. Since then it's been organizing monthly protests outside various Scientology 'orgs.'
Last month nearly 10,000 protestors gathered outside Scientology offices in 50 cities, many of them wearing Guy Fawkes masks a la the film V is for Vendetta. (You'll find photos, videos, and more at WikiNews, another collaborative site.) The CoS tried to get a judge to block the March protest outside the CoS HQ in Clearwater but failed, in part because it couldn't accurately identify anyone in the organization. Though CoS named 22 members of Anonymous, some were merely bystanders at prior protests, and one was a barrista who worked at the Starbucks across the street.
