We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists (2012)

The film was written and directed by Brian Knappenberger and features the story of Anonymous assumed to stem from the imageboard 4chan. It also outlines major turning points and "operations" in their history. Angered by many diverse issues such as copyright abuse, police brutality, online censorship and would-be web controllers this loosely affiliated collective of hacktivists have organised both online and offline protests, cyber attacks on foreign governments during the Arab Spring movement and provided technical support to the Occupy movement.

A truly fascinating documentary that really gives a clear history of the whole movement, not just Anonymous. Like you begin to understand the whole collective in a more revealing way. How it all began, how it evolved, how people disagreed and some took the idea too far. How the media still does not understand it. I truly enjoyed this and found its explanation while mostly in favour of the collective they did point out the lower parts of it. They also revealed how it was treated and how they share a kinship with WikiLeaks. If you wish to truly understand the Collective this documentary is very revealing and does not turn away from the worse parts. This is the Emperor without his clothes. This is Anonymous pockmarks and all.

We Are Legion: The Story of the HacktivistsThanks to online anonymity you can now let your friends know that they're fat sluts without having to lose their friendship.However, fat shaming is far from the mandate of the faceless hackers in this documentary.From its early inception on image-based message boards to its impact on the occupy movement, the polemic collective of online hackers known as Anonymous has always put freedom of speech first on their list of demands.Claiming to have hacked numerous email accounts and websites belonging to governments, politicians and movie executives, the faceless rabble reinforce their rule when civil liberties are threatened.Speaking in-depth with masked/unmasked members (Anon2World, Gregg Housh) as well as curators of online media outlets that tout its exploits, We Are Legion may be biased but it does divulged incredible insight into this unorganized organization.Furthermore, it's nice to know that those masks they wear don't mean they're all Juggalos.Green Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

Not surprisingly, "We are Legion" was extremely well received at Austin's SXSW Film Festival. This film sheds a great deal of light on the murky and confusing world of the hacker group Anonymous. The filmmakers were able to achieve incredible access to the group and tell the historical story mostly through interviews with participants. The film is essentially chronological so it tells their story so that people who haven't followed its development can gain some understanding of a very complicated and somewhat confusing organization. The film is done in a self-critical fashion that while generally favorable is not afraid to show the group's negatives, its conflicts and its internal struggles. It is extremely well-made and highly informative. The groups' almost accidental evolution from merry pranksters into some sort of political activists is fascinating. While they are clearly inspired by commitment to free speech – especially online – it is hard to clearly define their evolving ideology. They are clearly interconnected to emerging phenomenon such as the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, but it is difficult to determine how significant their political impact has been in these events. In any case, "We are Legion" provides an opportunity to those of us outside these organizations to gain some insight into what they are doing and that is extremely valuable. I hope that this film is widely viewed since it provides a view of one of the new political frontiers of the internet.