We had a giant week of news for Facebook.  From Facebook Likes being hijacked, mandatory timeline rollout, and the latest news of an impending IPO, it is clear the social media behemoth has had plenty to dominate technology news.  A review of news items also reveals a planned January 28th attack on the site by the notorious hacktivists group Anonymous.   Yet later reports emerged in where they would not be a target after all.

Can Anonymous be trusted to say there won’t be an attack?  Those reports indicate there may not be an attack because Facebook is known to be opposed to the very same SOPA and PIPA acts that are the supposed root of the attack threat.   Also, the AnonOps Twitter account has stated they will not be launching the attack.  It all could be a clever ploy, why would they not strike Facebook to show and publicize their strength.  Well, for one, taking down Facebook would be a huge task.  They are so huge it would be very formidable and with this public denial, it wouldn’t seem as though Anon would have the numbers.  Another thing is Anon does not show the lust for public headlines that LulzSec once did a whole distant year ago.  Also, Anonymous has a direct and clear message, as a ‘hacktivist’ group, they stand for internet freedom.  Any obfuscation of that message or conflict such as an attack against a site is publicly on their own side would not be something within their plans.

Instead AnonOps has chosen to take their activist message on January 28th with a Twitter Blackout in protest of the new Twitter censor rule.  Will it make the splash such as taking down Facebook would have done?  No.  It won’t.  But their cause of internet freedom will remain at the root of their course.

Facebook in the meantime appears to not be under this threat and we will soon hear grumblings both in public and on your own accounts as the mandatory rollout hits the site.  And with the looming IPO news anticipated for Feb 1st becoming a headline grabber for the early part if not most of next week, you can expect to hear much more about Facebook in the days to come.