Hacktivist collective Anonymous has said it will attack Facebook on 5 November, as it is against the social network’s privacy practices.
The loose group posted a video statement on YouTube announcing its intentions to “kill” Facebook on the same day Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the House of Lords in the UK on 1605.
“Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world,” said Anonymous in the statement.
“Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria.
“Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your ‘privacy’ settings, and deleting your account is impossible, even if you ‘delete’ your account, all your personal info stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time. Changing the privacy settings to make your Facebook account more ‘private’ is also a delusion. Facebook knows more about you than your family,” it said.
Anonymous said it was protesting for “choice and informed consent.”
“Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely false. It gives users the illusion of and hides the details away from them ‘for their own good’ while they then make millions off of you. When a service is ‘free,’ it really means they’re making money off of you and your information,” it said.
Anonymous has previously targeted websites from organisations such as MasterCard, typically using distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to take the site down temporarily.
Facebook does have a privacy policy, which is available online.
