Anti-War Hacktivism is Leading to Digital Xenophobia and a More Hostile Internet

The horrific Russian military invasion of Ukraine has understandably led to a backlash against Russia. The temptation is to label anything Russian, from state media and students to cats, as bad and block it to signal outrage and ostracization. This type of thinking has infected the open source and internet security communities as well—a terrible idea with potentially harmful consequences.

Recently the maintainer of a popular open source Node JS package “node-ipc” released a new plugin called “peacenotwar.” A …

digital hacktivism international internet war