The hacktivist collective Anonymous popularized these masks in 2008 when it launched Project Chanology, a movement targeting the Church of Scientology after the church tried to censor an interview with Tom Cruise on the web. Members of the collective agreed to come out from behind their computer screens to protest the Church of Scientology, but needed a way to conceal their identities. The Guy Fawkes mask was their chosen disguise. Although the collective has never officially stated the reasoning behind this choice, it's likely an homage to an eerie scene in V for Vendetta in which a group of masked protesters marches on the British Parliament. When asked why the mask was selected, one protester told The Boston Globe, "I can't say, not having contact with the inner circle — wherever they are, but I can say the image of people marching towards Parliament in the spirit of protest, that wall of masks, had a certain resonance amongst those who held negative feelings about organizations such as Scientology but also towards the government." The project grew into a national movement with demonstrations in Florida, Michigan, Boston, and Los Angeles. Since then, the masks have become a go-to symbol of the collective and anti-establishment movements worldwide.
After Anonymous' first major political demonstration in 2008, the collective began cleverly aligning itself with a variety of anti-establishment movements from Occupy Wall Street to the Arab Spring. It is, in part, due to these loose affiliations that the adopted emblem of one movement evolved into a global symbol of resistance.
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