Anonymous Deny Involvement In Kanye West Attack Video

Global hacktivist collective Anonymous has publicly denied being involved in the creation and dissemination of a seven-minute video attack on Kanye West that went viral yesterday.

Originally posted in late February, the video went largely unnoticed until it caught the attention of Reddit and other social aggregators over the past couple of days, eventually being picked up by news outlets claiming that Anonymous had attacked Kanye West, thus prompting the "official" Anonymous body to deny involvement.

The clip shows a figure ostensibly dressed in recognisable Anonymous garb - that is, Hugo Weaving's old costume from V For Vendetta - calling out West for perceived transgressions from "steal[ing] the moment from others who work equally as hard for their recognition" to his tendency to act "like a spoiled child in a grown man's body who is ready to set off a boiling temper tantrum the very moment you don't get all the things you want", interspersing interview footage and making snide comments about wife Kim Kardashian, daughter North West and even Kanye's late mother.

"There seems to be some news coverage regarding '#Anonymous threatening Kanye West'," the collective wrote on Twitter this morning (AEST). "Please keep us out of this bullshit. Thx."

Bizarrely, Anonymous have used their official (i.e. certified) Facebook page to point to an AnonHQ story about the video, which further explains that there is no affiliation with the video's creator, "although some points make sense". That said, when you're dealing with a worldwide army of mask-wearing hackers, it can be difficult to keep tabs on who's actually in charge of the joint, and whose messages should be given more weight. 

Either way, you can see said bullshit below.

It's been a weird few days for Kanye West as it is - earlier this week, we saw the arrival of a Twitter account whose owner claimed to be in possession of a stolen/found laptop containing unreleased tracks; if you haven't heard about it, it's because that, too, has since been totally debunked by people in Kanye's camp. As his representative told NME, West's laptop is still very much in his possession, and the recent leak of unreleased track Awesome - for which the tweeter had taken credit - was "unrelated and completely coincidental" to the appearance of the @kanyelaptop account.