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From Noobguides to #Opkkk: Ethics of Anonymous' Tactical Technical Communication

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From Noobguides to #Opkkk: Ethics of Anonymous' Tactical Technical Communication Technical Communication Quarterly ISSN: 1057-2252 (Print) 1542-7625 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/htcq20 From NoobGuides to #OpKKK: Ethics of Anonymous’ Tactical Technical Communication Jared S. Colton, Steve Holmes & Josephine Walwema To cite this article: Jared S. Colton, Steve Holmes & Josephine Walwema (2017) From NoobGuides to #OpKKK: Ethics of Anonymous’ Tactical Technical Communication, Technical Communication Quarterly, 26:1, 59-75, DOI: 10.1080/10572252.2016.1257743 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2016.1257743 Published online: 07 Dec 2016. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1288 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 12 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=htcq20 TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY 2017, VOL. 26, NO. 1, 59–75 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2016.1257743 From NoobGuides to #OpKKK: Ethics of Anonymous’ Tactical Technical Communication Jared S. Coltona, Steve Holmesb, and Josephine Walwemac aUtah State University; bGeorge Mason University; cOakland University ABSTRACT KEYWORDS Tactical technical communication research suggests its application to social Anonymous; care; Cavarero; justice. However, beyond a general advocacy of anti-institutional activity, de ethics; tactical technical Certeau’s notion of tactics provides no detailed ethical framework for communication ethically justifying tactics. In acknowledgement of this gap, this article foregrounds the ethical thought of feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero, particularly her concept of vulnerability, as a supplement for those employ- ing tactics for social justice causes. The authors examine the technical documents produced by the hacktivist collective Anonymous. Introduction A growing number of technical communicators have engaged de Certeau’s(1984) “tactics” via Kimball’s(2006) definition of tactical technical communication (Ding, 2009; Rice, 2009; Seigel, 2013; Towner, 2013). In brief, tactics describe the various ways in which often individuals who are marginalized can appropriate strategies of control to suit their own ends. In employing tactics, consumers who were once passive of dominant or mass culture shift to active producers, thereby blurring the lines for technical communicators between the composition of formal technical docu- ments and informal or do-it-yourself (DIY) modes, genres, and styles. Although such inroads represent excellent starting places, the use of de Certeau (1984) by technical communicators is complicated by several factors, including the need to consider the ways in which we evaluate the ethics of a given set of tactical practices. Building on Kimball’s research, Ding (2009) notes that de Certeau ideally hopes that tactics will be a kairotic “art of the weak” in which technical commu- nicators learn to observe when “the precise instant of an intervention is transform[ed] into a favorable situation”, p. 39). Tactics “vigilantly make use of the cracks that particular conjunctions open in the surveillance of” dominant power structures (p. 37). Nevertheless, as we demonstrate below, de Certeau’s writing (1980, 1984) does not offer a fully developed ethical framework beyond a generalized defense of autonomous initiatives. As an example, consider his definition of an ethic of tenacity as “refusing to accord the established order the status of law, a meaning, or a fatality” (p. 26). In an observation we in no way mean as dismissive of his important contributions, de Certeau (1980, 1984) does not clarify in detail how individuals might employ the ethic of tenacity to differentiate ethical from unethical established orders beyond echoing his general dislike of capitalist institutions. Furthermore, the ethics of tactics as an art of the weak is made even more complicated by the increasing interconnection of tactical technical communication with social justice, social media, and hacking practices. The hacktivist collective Anonymous, for instance, circulates many forms of tactical technical communication on behalf of the weak such as a Self-Defense Handbook (Anonymous [Defense Front], 2014), which recently surfaced in the 2015 Ferguson, Missouri, protests (OpFerguson). Among other practices, the Self-Defense Handbook instructs users how to CONTACT Jared S. Colton [email protected] Department of English, Utah State University, 3200 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322. © 2017 Association of Teachers of Technical Writing 60 J. S. COLTON ET AL. create DIY gas masks out of 2 liter soda bottles to protect themselves against police tear gas. Anonymous also has created a large number of hybrid technical documents that “doxx” (short for “dropping documents”), or publicize the private information of individuals associated with a targeted groups. As part of their 2015 OpKKK initiative that followed OpFerguson, Anonymous released an informational memo that offered users a brief rationale for the purpose of the document as well as the addresses and phone numbers of the White supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and Stormfront. In a confirmation of the ethical ambiguity of doxxing as a tactical practice, Anonymous previously threatenedtodoxxtheschoolscheduleoftheteenagedaughterofJohnBelmar,thepolicechiefof Ferguson, Missouri. Anonymous’ goal was to force Belmar to release the names of the officers who had shot Michael Brown, the African American victim whose death was the catalyst for the 2014 protests, by potentially exposing a tangentially related target to the threat of physical harm, stalking, or other forms of online and offline harassment. Simply put, we suggest that there is nothing inherent in a given technical document that supports tactical practices or that functions tactically in itself that makes a tactic ethical or unethical in all scenarios. To be clear, de Certeau (1980, 1984) does not explicitly make this claim even if the largely leftist political bent that animates his thinking strongly implies it. As a result, technical commu- nicators’ interests in de Certeau (1984) can benefit from further considerations of when a given set of tactical technical communicationpracticessuchasAnonymous’ are ethical, even when they claim to be operating in the name of “the weak.” This article suggests that one helpful starting place lies in a body of thought called the “ethics of care,” and, in particular, the thinking of the feminist philosopher Cavarero (2011). Rather than looking for a correct universal ethical principle through the categorical imperative, such as Kant’s (1969) absolute prohibition against lying, an ethics of care recognizes moral value in the reciprocal and singular relations of caring between individuals that ensures one another’s well-being. Cavarero’s unique approach to care ethics is through her development of the concept of “vulner- ability.” She posits that vulnerability is an ontological characteristic of being human, which, for Cavarero, makes human relationality—one human’s existence exposed to another’s—already per- meated with ethicality. Because no individual can escape vulnerability, each human body is “irre- mediably open” to relations of “caring or wounding” (p. 20). Each and every living human being is always in a vulnerable relation to others, but the degree to which that relation is one of caring or wounding depends upon on localized and concrete factors, such as materiality, age, time, space, and power. For Cavarero, wounding and caring do not correspond to a basic binary (e.g., wounding = bad, caring = good). Rather, these terms offer a set of fluid ratios to allow us to characterize the totality of relations of those affected by a given tactical action, and, in turn, to attribute ethical behavior which, in some cases, will involve wounding certain individuals to help ensure our collective ability to ensure an ethics of care for the most vulnerable. To illustrate this extension of de Certeau (1984), we analyze the ethics of three of Anonymous’ recent technical communication genres that demonstrate an ambiguous ethical status. First, we examine two instructional guides for hacking, the NoobGuide (Anonymous, 2015b) and the Twatter Reporter Guide (Anonymous, 2015c), and, secondly, we examine the OpKKK doxx memo (Anonymous [Defense Front], 2014) that released the private information of alleged White suprema- cists. We have selected these three examples because they are representative of the types of technical documents that Anonymous has employed over the past decade. Anonymous has circulated multiple versions of the NoobGuide (Anonymous, 2015b) and Twatter Reporter Guide (Anonymous, 2015c)on the Internet alongside various “Ops” (operations). In fact, the particular documents that we examine in this article surfaced in OpISIS and OpParis to encourage users to initiate tactical forms of resistance against The Islamic State of Iraq’s (ISIS) online presence. Similarly, doxxing represents a pervasive tactic. Anonymous has released or has threatened to publish memos that doxx various groups or individuals as part of countless past Ops. Furthermore, unlike some early Anonymous trolling practices, such as ordering pizzas for someone without his or her knowledge, signing up a targeted individual to receive junk mail, or Rickrolling, all three tactical technical documents share some TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY 61 relationship to exigencies of social justice (e.g., securing a voice for the unrepresented).
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