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Comment by sp332 | Hacker News Reader

I thought I should surface this comment by "sado" from that page:

Also, the statement “We must sign ACTA and not give in to blackmail" was taken out of context (the context: Anonymous, who DDOSed Polish govt sites, threatened to release personal data of minister Boni and to DDOS moar, if Polish govt signs the ACTA... that could be called "blackmail").

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Does Anonymous's association net help or hurt the anti-ACTA position? And historically, did it help or hurt anti-SOPA/PIPA?

I generally took what they do as being emotionally gratifying but having zero real impact, but by giving the un-informed but not necessarily malicious (and potentially the intentionally malevolent spinsters) an easy way to justify onerous regulation, I think they may be hurting the causes they ostensibly back in the long-run.

It's hard to say what the net effect is. It's true that such attacks give the government an effective, if fallacious, argument: "we cannot give in to blackmail". On the other hand, large-scale media coverage started only after the Anonymous hacked the government websites. Before the attacks, the Polish media were not interested in ACTA. This in turn helped mobilize politicians from opposition parties and, I think, also the protesters.

The "blackmail" fragment isn't just out of context, it's plain misleading. It suggests that the PM treats street protests as blackmail, when in fact the PM was referring to statements from "hackers" that said they will release official docs stolen from govt servers if the govt signs ACTA.

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