ABSTRACT
Macrosecuritizations are universalizing speech acts about global existential threats. In this chapter, Adam Fish examines how the hacktivist collective Anonymous frames the fight for ‘internet freedom’ as a ‘battle’ to be won for universal human rights. More specifically, the chapter investigates Operation Last Resort, a 2013 political project to avenge the death of internet activist Aaron Swartz. Operation Last Resort featured a video with macrosecuritizing imagery of global thermonuclear war, thus framing internet freedom as globally threatened. Anonymous’s macrosecuritization discourse appears inclusive and cosmopolitan, hailing video viewers anywhere in the world to participate in activism. Yet, the use of militant macrosecuritization discourses in masked and ominous videos creates not inclusion but exclusion. Furthermore, Anonymous uses macrosecuritizing propaganda to inspire themselves and terrify their enemies, but in doing so they help to position the internet into the militaristic discursive framework of state militaries and cybersecurity experts. Not all within Anonymous agree that the use of military imagery is the optimal way of resisting the militarization of the internet. A desecuritization process followed Operation Last Resort as former participants sought to counter the military macrosecuritization discourse with a change.org online petition that rejected the military imagery. Desecuritization requires not discussing issues in terms of security but instead shifting the dialogue to agonistic politics.
