Anonymous Threatens Westboro Baptist Church

 

In the wake of yesterday’s bombing at the Boston Marathon, the Westboro Baptist Church—the small yet noisy bunch who gained national attention for picketing the funerals of American soldiers in the name of hating gay people—did what they do: It announced its plans to yell at people attending funerals of Boston Marathon victims for not being godly enough.

 

The hacker group Anonymous wasn’t a fan of this, so today it threatened the Topeka, Kansas-based church with unspecified retaliation. Earlier today, Anonymous members apparently hacked WBC’s Facebook account, rewriting bio information and plastering its wall with an assortment of meme-heavy images. Update (1:37 a.m. April 17) Earlier today, people on Twitter reported that Anonymous members had apparently hacked WBC’s Facebook account, rewriting bio information and plastering its wall with an assortment of meme-heavy images. Well, it turns out that they, and I, were a little too excited at the possibility. It looks like Anonymous members have been engaged in the brandjacking (read: squatting) of the (bogus) Westboro Baptist Church page for the past four months.

But that doesn’t mean they’re not serving up some amusing posts:

1. In which the church founders include beloved cereal box character “Captain Crunch“:
westboro baptist church anonymous hacking boston marathon

2. For all the Star Trek fans:

Star Trek Westboro Baptist Church hack

3. Self-explanatory:

Dark Knight Westboro Baptist Church hack

4. Dr. King:

Martin Luther King Jr. Westboro Baptist Church Anonymous

5. #YOLO:

yolo westboro baptist church

6. Here’s some Obama:

Obama westboro baptist church hacking

7. Now have some Condi:

Condoleezza Rice Westboro Facebook hack

8. And the obligatory cat:

Cat Westboro Baptist Church Anonymous

9. “POKEMON ABUSE“:

Pokemon abuse Westboro Baptist Church facebook hack

10. And finally some Austin Powers:

Austin Powers Westboro Baptist Church

This isn’t the only time Anonymous has targeted the Westboro Baptist Church. In mid-December, after WBC announced that they would crash the Newtown funerals, the online collective apparently hacked the church’s website (the predictably titled godhatesfags.com) and the Twitter feed of Westboro-er Shirley Phelps-Roper. It also posted church members’ personal information online.

 

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate