Anonymous Muzzled on Crusade Against Westboro Baptist Church

Posted on Dec 19, 2012

Ben Fredericson (xjrlokix) (CC BY 2.0)

The hacker collective’s Twitter account was temporarily suspended Wednesday after the group posted personal information belonging to members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

On Monday, Anonymous announced plans to go after the Topeka, Kan.-based church after its members promised to protest the funerals of children killed in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

A spokesman for Twitter declined to comment, but Anonymous posted a screenshot, which it claimed was from the social media site, saying the account was suspended because its users violated the site’s rules prohibiting the sharing of other people’s private information.

By 1 p.m. EST, Anonymous said the account had been reactivated and thanked Twitter for the publicity the group received during and after the blackout.

—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

The Huffington Post:

The brief ordeal began shortly before noon, when the group tweeted from a different account it had set up, ?@YANBackUp.

“#Breaking: @Twitter has suspended @YourAnonNews. #YAN #Anonymous,” the tweet said.

Another tweet from the account read, “Free speech is dead.”

The hacker collective had sent frequent updates about its operations from the account @YourAnonNews. A Twitter search for @YourAnonNews on Wednesday said: “Sorry, that user is suspended.”

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