  Recently, there had been little notable activity from the once prominent
hacktivist group, Anonymous. The group, responsible for activist-based cyber
attacks on major businesses and governments, appeared to have fragmented after
key members were arrested in 2013. In response to the major Black Lives Matter
(BLM) protests that occurred after the killing of George Floyd, however,
reports indicated that the group was back. To examine this apparent resurgence,
we conduct a large-scale study of Anonymous affiliates on Twitter. To this end,
we first use machine learning to identify a significant network of more than
33,000 Anonymous accounts. Through topic modelling of tweets collected from
these accounts, we find evidence of sustained interest in topics related to
BLM. We then use sentiment analysis on tweets focused on these topics, finding
evidence of a united approach amongst the group, with positive tweets typically
being used to express support towards BLM, and negative tweets typically being
used to criticize police actions. Finally, we examine the presence of
automation in the network, identifying indications of bot-like behavior across
the majority of Anonymous accounts. These findings show that whilst the group
has seen a resurgence during the protests, bot activity may be responsible for
exaggerating the extent of this resurgence.
