"Enter the Swarm: Anonymous and the Global Protest Movements"
Felix Stalder

In the course of just one year, using the identity “Anonymous,” highly
efficient digital attacks have been carried out against global
corporations and national governments. All in the name of freedom
of speech and social justice. The media coverage has done little
to clarify the events, rather, contradictory characterizations of
Anonymous have been espoused, ranging from an elite hacker conspiracy,
to a loose network of ignorant teenagers, from a major cyber-terrorist
threat to a mere nuisance driven by sophomoric humor. None of these
characterizations is entirely incorrect, because each captures some
fragments of the phenomenon, but they all miss the central element of
Anonymous, namely that it is not one, but many, and that it is not a
group or a network, but a swarm, or to be correct, multiple swarms
that feed off each other.