Can Scientology survive the social web?

Written on 29th May 2009                                                                                                              2 COMMENTS
Martin Bryant, Co-founder, Social Media Café Manchester

The Church of Scientology has reportedly been banned from making edits to Wikipedia. The Register is reporting that the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee voted 10 to 0 (with one abstention) in favour of a move to ban all IP numbers associated with the controversial organisation from editing articles. The block takes effect immediately.

The Church of Scientology has struggled to keep control of its public image in recent years. It was established in 1952 to promote Science Fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard’s ‘Dianetics’ self-help programme. In its 57 year history Scientology has been controversial due to its mysterious teachings, only available to those willing to pay vast sums of money and undergo regular ’security checks’ to ensure they could be trusted.

Those unable to pay are sometimes invited to join the ‘Sea Org’, a group of people who sign ‘Billion-year contracts’ to devote their life (and future lives) to doing hard, and often menial, work for the Church. There have been suspicious deaths at Scientology centres and even the Scientology’s status as a Church has been questioned by those who believe that they use the ‘Religion’ status purely to claim tax exemption.

While in the past dissent was dealt with by legal threats, smear campaigns and and dirty tricks, Scientology has found the age of the Social Web much harder to control. Anonymous, a loosely-associated group of people across the world opposed to the ‘Church’, use the internet to organise regular pickets at Scientology centres and post Youtube videos exposing the organisation’s wrongdoings.

The ‘Church’ has fought back with takedown notices and by mobilising its members to post comments supporting Scientology. Long-time anti-Scientology campaigner Mark Bunker had his Youtube account repeatedly shut down after complaints about the content of his videos.

The problem Scientology faces is that the web is getting bigger and faster by the day. Messages spread faster than ever and the dominant message out there is that ‘Scientology is bad’. For an organisation that trades on selling its secrets for a huge fee, the open, social web is a dangerous place. Anyone considering joining the Scientology is one Google search away from all the criticism of the Church that they could want.

With this new Wikipedia ban it looks like a net is closing in on Scientology that it may struggle to escape from.

ban, church, scientology, wikipedia

2 Comments »

1st member of anti-scientology group ‘Anonymous’ pleads guilty.

Written on 12th May 2009                                                                                                              0 COMMENTS
Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.

A teenager from New Jersey pleaded guilty to a hacking charge on Monday for his role in the distributed denial-of-service attack on the Church of Scientology website last year.

Anonymous, formed last year, is a collective of internet users who’s aim is to wage war on the church of Scientology. The group launched a denial of service attack on the Scientology.org website and has published a page on Wikipedia to recruit others to the cause. Previous targets of Anonymous have included virtual worlds, an epilepsy message board and a Neo-Nazi web-caster.

19 year old Dmitriy Guzner was charged with a felony count of unauthorized impairment of a protected computer for the distributed denial-of-service attack in January 2008. Guzner faces a maximum 10 years when sentenced August 24.

Along with a number of remarkably successful organised demonstrations outside Churches of Scientology worldwide, Anonymous also released a number of video announcements via YouTube, the first of which, “Message to Scientology, is embedded below.

anonymous, scientology

No Comments »

Inside report: Online battle against Scientology (+The Video!)

Written on 28th January 2008                                                                                                              2 COMMENTS
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web

This an article by Edial Dekker, a Dutch blogger and student, who witnessed the on-line attack on Scientology.

For many years there have been a lot of popular on-line partitions where people participated in to make a change to the world. Not only on-line injustice, but also world problems have always been part of the on-line communities. Recently did we not only give the Greenpeace-whale the name Mister Splashy Pants , but we have also saved a man’s holiday. This is very nice and all, but can social networks and masses of on-line Internet users really make a difference? Last Thursday we got some answers…

If you haven’t seen Tom Cruise movie in which he talks about Scientology, be sure to check it out because when it was taken down on YouTube by the Scientology [This video has been removed due to a copyright claim by the Church of Scientology] hell broke lose on many social networks. Last Thursday – a group called ‘Anon‘ (stands for Anonymous) – used Digg.com to plan an attack later that night against websites related to the Church of Scientology. Everything related to Anon, or the Scientology went to frontpage in just minutes… (more…)

hackers, irc, scientology, tom cruise, Video Interview

2 Comments »