Anonymous: Not OK to Just Call People KKK

The question of the authenticity of the leaked list of KKK members has been raised shortly after the hacktivist group Anonymous shared the story on one of their Twitter accounts, and by none other than Anonymous themselves. The hack of the KKK websites that lead to the data leak was not performed by the group or any of their members.

While Anonymous showed a certain interest in the release due to their own Operation KKK, the group later stated that they had nothing to do with this leak and hinted that they found such actions irresponsible.

This account has NOT YET released any information. We believe in due diligence and will NOT recklessly involve innocent individuals #OpKKK

— Operation KKK (@Operation_KKK) November 2, 2015

First instance of the pastebin links being mentioned on twitter: https://t.co/NCyDU0Zv2b <- this is not the official November 5th release

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) November 2, 2015

The group didn’t just state that they had nothing to do with the data dump and it might not have been a good idea, they outright called it ‘clearly’ false.

The twitter account that released the pastebin with the government officials that are clearly not KKK is https://t.co/G9cdjw4hfK

— Anonymous (@YourAnonNews) November 2, 2015

Anonymous even went a little further and explained one of the reasons why the list has nothing in common with reality:

Just because an email is in a database doesn't mean the person is a member of the organization either. Think research, intel, etc #opkkk

— Anonymous (@Anonycast) November 3, 2015

Moreover, the person who released the list of alleged KKK members on Twitter under the alias Amped Attacks doesn’t claim to be part of the Operation KKK project or the Anonymous either, much to their relief:

#ICYMI #OpKKK was in no way involved with today's release of information that incorrectly outed several politicians https://t.co/M1ltrb2P0B

— Operation KKK (@Operation_KKK) November 2, 2015

Although all of @YourAnonCentral’s tweets about the story have been deleted, they have tweeted a link to the original dump:

Taking down #OpKKK memes compiled from early morning Anon dump since #UnitedBlue is starting to @ me. Find them here:https://t.co/tD3Ea7G7Qg

— Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) November 3, 2015

The Guardian later revealed that non-profit organizations, a "most wanted" number of Georgia's police department, and a Democratic National Committee donation line were on the list of 57 phone numbers and 23 email addresses that were published online and claimed to be associated with the KKK.