Did Anonymous play into the government’s hands?

That’s the suggestion of Molly Wood at CNET who claims that the government planned the MegaUpload take down to happen right after the SOPA/PIPA protests on Wednesday.

She claims that her sources told her that the timing of the MegaUpload arrests was intentional. The federal government was wanting to start a fight with Anonymous after the beating SOPA and PIPA received on Wednesday. Her sources claim that the government instigated a fight with Anonymous to display the Internet not as a peaceful resistance force, but as a violent, destructive mob.

As we mentioned yesterday with the original MegaUpload take down story, the timing was all too convenient. Does that mean the government did it on purpose? There’s no way to really tell.

What we do know is that an effective way to ruin the Internet’s good image after the peaceful protest on Wednesday is to represent them as being part of the same force that Anonymous belongs to. While it is true that Anonymous did support the blackout, the two sides (internet culture at large and Anonymous) couldn’t be more different.

If this does prove to be true though, expect the government to use OpMegaUpload as proof that the Internet needs to be regulated. It will be used to label legitimate companies like Wikipedia and Google as cyber-terrorists because they supported the black out which was obviously organized by Anonymous as a form of terrorism.

Do you believe that the federal government timed the MegaUpload arrests on purpose? Is Anonymous playing right into their hands? Let us know in the comments.