The famous organization created Your Anon News as it sought to make a dedicated news site rather than use the existing Tumblr and Twitter accounts, which didn’t really give it credibility.
Through an Indiegogo campaign, the hacktivists managed to raise over $55,000 for the site, out of which about $30,000 (€21,800) to $35,000 (€25,400) have vanished over time. The person responsible for the magic number is Jackal, a contributor who helped the cause, or so the group claims.
The hacktivists explain that unknowingly to everyone else involved, Jackal had become a fraud who mishandled a big part of the money. “There’s no way for us to know where it went, or what he ultimately decided to do with it. He has refused to cooperate and tell us the truth,” the post reads.
They even give the example of a programmer who worked on the site and who was repeatedly told by Jackal that he would be paid, yet that never happened.
“When Jackal invited us, we were happy to join the “YAN project” with the agreement that it was to be a collective of equals, no bosses, no alienated labor, and no hierarchy. Together we were going to create a weekly news show, provide embeddedcoverage of direct actions, and run a new website to help ignite protest and DIY journalism around the world. But as you know, it didn’t quite work out like that,” writes YourAnonNews.
Furthermore, not only were there problems in paradise, but @JackalAnon has been trying to convince Twitter to assume custody of the @YourAnonNews, a Twitter account with over 1.24 million followers, which the organization hopes to prevent, even though it originally belonged to Jackal. To that end, they wrote a letter to Twitter explaining the entire problem.
They even say that they’ve considered deleting the account, or renaming it, but they don’t feel like it belongs to them, but rather to everyone who was involved and shared articles and helped increase its reach.
As for the future, they plan to take the site and the attached Twitter account “back to basics” to ensure that it remains a collective voice to support anonymous ops, radical activists, jailed anons and political prisoners, as well as news that wouldn’t otherwise be told.
Hopefully, Twitter will listen to their plea and avoid handing over the account to the man they accuse of stealing more than half of the crowdfunded sum.
