Facebook and Zynga threatened with shutdown by Anonymous
hacktivists in retaliation for gaming giant's layoff
Hackers have threatened to shut down sites on November
5, which marks Guy Fawkes Day
The
threat by Anonymous comes after Zynga slashed its workforce of 3,000 employees
by 5 per cent The gaming giant, known for FarmVille
and Words With Friends, allegedly plans to outsource jobs to India
The 'hacktivists'
have targeted Zynga for its 'outrageous treatment of their employees ‘The
online activist group, known as Anonymous, has threatened to shut down Zynga
and Facebook, days after the gaming giant announced it was laying off 5 per
cent of its workforce.
The
group is targeting the San Francisco based company because of 'the outrageous
treatment of their employees and their actions against many developers,' an
unidentified member of the group, donning their trademark Guy Fawkes mask,
announced in a YouTube video posted on Sunday.
Slamming
the tech firm for slashing its employee base while sitting on 'billion dollars
cash,' the hackers threatened to release games it has stolen from Zynga's
server, in addition to shutting down both Zynga and Facebook on November 5.
Warning:
The online activist group known as Anonymous has threatened to shut down Zynga
and Facebook on November 5, which marks Guy Fawkes Day
Threat:
The group planned its attack in retaliation against Zynga's announcement it
would cut 5 per cent of its staff and would outsource many of those jobs to
India The looming threat to take down the social networking sites comes after
Zynga unveiled a restructuring plan in the wake of its disappointing third
quarter earnings report on October 24.
Zynga
CEO Mark Pincus announced last week it would lay off five per cent of its
workforce, of approximately 3,000, shutting down its office in Boston and
slashing the staff at the company's Austin branch. The company is also said to
be looking at closing operations in the UK and Japan.
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it OK to download unapproved apps to smartphonesThe downsizing came as Zynga
announced the company lost $52.7 million, or 7 cents per share in the past
quarter.
The
company CEO described the layoffs as necessary 'to streamline our operations,
focus our resources on our most strategic opportunities, and invest in our
future,' in a memo to staff last week. ‘As part of these changes, we’ve had to
make some tough decisions around products, teams and people. ‘Plan: The group
dubbed their campaing #OP maZYNGA and plans to roll out their attack in
multiple phases Layoffs: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus (speaking at a San Francisco
event on October 11) said last week the layoffs were necessary 'to streamline
operations’ ‘We don’t take these decisions lightly as we recognize the impact
to our colleagues and friends who have been on this journey with us. We
appreciate their amazing contributions and will miss them.'
In
addition to staff cuts, the company is also retiring some of its older games.
Though Zynga dominated the early online gaming market, with its widely popular
FarmVille and Words With Friends, it has been losing
out to competitors like King.com, Wooga and Kixeye, in addition to the mobile
arena where it has lost market share. The latest news from Zynga could mean
even more problems for Facebook, as the gaming unit accounted for 14 per cent
of Facebook's total revenue for the first six months of 2012.
Facebook
has failed to impress Wall Street in the aftermath of its hyped IPO in May, as
many analysts wonder if Mark Zuckerberg can really deliver a profit. Gaming
giant: Zynga (pictured: the company headquarters in San Francisco) opened in
2003 and developed FarmVille and Words With Friends.
It accounted for 14 per cent of Facebook's revenue in the past six months
Zynga
customers and Facebook users, We are anonymous. During
the last few days anonymous has been targeting Zynga for the outrageous
treatment of their employees and their actions against many developers.
We
have come to believe that these actions of Zynga will result in massive layoff
of a thousand people and legal actions against everyone that speaks to the
public about this plan. It will also come to end of the US game market as we
know it as all this jobs will be replaced in other more convenient financial
countries. With a billion dollars cash sitting in a bank we do believe that
such actions are an insult to the population and the behaviour of corporations
like Zynga must change.
Anonymous
could not allow this to happen so it's starting to release confidential
documents we have leaked on this plan. As we speak we are planning to release
also all the games we've taken from their servers for free.hat being said we
will stop the idea of the distribution of such games if Zynga will cease
immediately the plan. ‘On November the fifth we will release the key to the
data files. Remember, remember the 5TH of November,' the group said.
November
5 marks Guy Fawkes Day, which commemorates the day in 1605 when Guy Fawkes
joined a group of Roman Catholic conspirators who tried to blow up the British
Parliament. The group of hackers, whose members don masks of the English
rebellion leader, are a loosely organized body who protest government
surveillance of the web.
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