💉 Flew Shot 2020 - A News Post 📰. Anonymous blog update 1 👨🏽‍💻.

Yesterday I published my first blog post in almost a year I think. Well, that's not entirely true. Although I've been absent from my own blogs and podcasting for a bit now, I've been busy with another sort of blogging.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine confided in me that he had been hired to write news articles for a website affiliated with the famous hacktivist collective, Anonymous. It's a paid gig, nothing glorious, just current trending world news, very factual and as unbiased as humanly possible. No hacking or conspiracy theories, and as a matter of fact, a great deal of voluntary censorship so as not to contend with the algorithms on social media; it hurts ad revenue tremendously and the gig would pay no more.

He admitted it was a small crew, him and sometimes one other writer, and since it wasn't the style of writing he was accustomed to it could be overwhelming at times. he knew I had the ability to write professionally and talked his boss into giving me a shot. I had been trying to apply for writing and editing jobs all over the internet to no avail.

Although, I was already writing for one of the biggest electronic dance music websites in the world, NYCR, as a labor of love, Anonymous News is officially my first professional writing gig. It is something I am proud to have on my resume.

Something I don't often talk about on social media when I share my articles is one of the responsibilities that comes with the position of researcher, writer and editor for a website such as Anonymous News. I am also listed as a team member for the Facebook page which boasts well over 11 million followers.

Now. again, it's not as glorious as it sounds. For one, the website is really just a news outlet which covers trending topics and generates some ad revenue. It's all multimedia marketing really. We're a very small team of independent and aspiring writers. We're no different than any other bloggers trying to get a piece of the proverbial pie.

Being on the receiving end of a Facebook group's inbox with 11 plus million people actually paying attention to what gets posted in addition to the social media giant's own very proficient team of "content moderators" has been an interesting peek into the minds of some people around the world.

When I first took on this role, I was advised to be careful when representing the website and the team and consider that we have followers from all walks of life; people on the extreme left, extreme right, Muslims, Christians, anarchists, crazies and all kinds of normies. And through my limited exchanges with some of the direct messages, I've seen it all.

The thing that hit me at first, is how many people really think of Anonymous as some sort of superhero vigilante. I suppose if you're only notion of Anonymous is what the mainstream media portrayed several years ago as a result of several hackers making the news due to law enforcement investigations, then I could see that being the case. In reality Anonymous is an idea adopted and adapted mostly from a Hollywood film to give those protesting government overreach in the areas of free speech and informed consent a sense of uniformity. It became a way to indicate a oneness across a wide scope of the political spectrum when our fundamental ideals align against tyrannical global oppression in general. We can then go on about our lives appreciating our cultural diverseness.

A lot of what we get in our inbox I imagine resembles what that of Wikileaks must look like. Sometimes it's an individual attempting to report malicious goings on among their local government or funny business regarding local law enforcement. Often there is the complaint of poverty at the hands of crony capitalism, complaints of institutionalized racism and sexism, there are complaints as grandiose as to be on par with things like Pizzagate or MK Ultra. I may have even read a message or two about aliens.

One day I had to block a lady. After a couple of days of back and forth with her, I realized my notifications were going to continue every 5 minutes indefinitely. My conclusion is that she was either extremely manic, paranoid and alone or using a lot of hardcore drugs or both. She began with something about a global pedophile ring tied to the UN with members of her local government being involved in some way. Initially, I advised her to contact the appropriate authorities if she really had suspicion of a violent crime being committed. I thought that was sound advice and left it at that. Well, it was apparent she was appalled at the fact that someone even as loosely affiliated with Anonymous as a team of journalists wouldn't go out of their way to use the bat signal and summons a global citizens' cyber attack at members of the politicians and law enforcement higher-ups where she lived.

Now, I'll admit, the bulk of messages in the inbox is a combination of a lot of thumbs up and praise emojis for Anonymous sprinkled with the occasional complaint that we didn't give one news story enough attention or published too little about extremely urgent updates and commentary on the global political theater. We've even been criticized for being too positive sharing uplifting memes, quotes and entertaining anecdotes to keep the page active and devoid of Facebook fuckery and algorithmic squelching. At the end of the day, I do enjoy getting practice writing in a professional unbiased tone and sharpening my vocabulary while broadening my knowledge base. It is one thing I loved about being an academic. I hope you enjoy reading my work as much as I do producing it.