Hacker Group Anonymous Takes Up Arms in SOPA Battle

​The "hacktivist" network known as Anonymous has stepped into the fray in the battle among legacy media companies, Internet firms, and politicians over the federal Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

The controversial proposed legislation would make it more difficult for websites to display pirated content, but many tech companies -- including Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, and others -- argue that it is overkill, and would unfairly restrict information-sharing.

Now another group with an interest in making sure that the Internet remains as free as a lawless Caribbean sea has added its voice to the debate: the hackers of Anonymous.

Anonymous is going after the heads of media companies that support the legislation, the New York Times reports, including Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes and Sumner Redstone of Viacom and CBS. Bewkes' home addresses and phone numbers were posted online among documents with information about numerous executives at companies that back SOPA.

The latest stunt by Anonymous, which has made its name through acts ranging from the posting of photos of a BART spokesman's genitalia online to the sabotage of the Talking Points Memo news site, goes by the name Operation Hiroshima, with the Twitter hashtag #OpHiroshima.

A menacing YouTube video announcing the effort states, "You take our speech, you take our Internet... We fight back."

Follow us on Twitter at @SFWeekly and @TheSnitchSF