FL Senate Candidate Tries To Edit Scientology Links From Wikipedia Page, Streisanding Those Links Everywhere

from the hail-thetan dept

You really would think people would know better by now when it comes to trying to surrepticiously edit Wikipedia pages to hide information, but they don't. There is a long history of people and companies trying to disappear or edit potentially embarrassing facts from Wikipedia, only to have it backfire directly in their faces via a little thing we call The Streisand Effect. And yet they still try.

The latest example of this is the Florida Senate Campaign for David Jolly attempting to simply delete his ties to the Church of Scientology from his Wikipedia page.

Sarah Bascom, Jolly’s spokesperson, confirmed that the campaign removed references to Jolly’s past career as a lobbyist, his association with the Church of Scientology, his support for same sex marriage, and political contributions he made to Democratic candidates. Bascom accused a unspecified rival campaign of adding what she described as “campaign propaganda” in the first place. Two edits were made — one on March 15 and one on April 4 — by a user named “Bascomcomm”. Bascom is the president of Bascom Communications & Consulting, a political firm in Florida.

“We were notified a few months ago that a consultant who works for one of our us senate [sic] opponents has been intentionally editing the David Jolly Wikipedia page to follow their opposition research messaging so they can use it in a mail or digital campaign,” Bascom told BuzzFeed News in an email. “Once we found about it, we went in and attempted to correct his page to be consistent with all of his public bios.”

Except that none of that appears to be true. By all accounts, the sections which Bascom's firm deleted from Jolly's Wikipedia page were heavily sourced and most of the contributions that were disappeared had been put into the page well over a year ago. It would take some Nostradamus-level seeing skills for a rival Senatorial prospect to edit Jolly's Wikepedia page to include damning information years in advance of the campaign actually taking place. And, even if we are dealing with a political prognosticator here, the sections were sourced. Note that nothing in the quote above suggests that the campaign was editing out lies. It only says that it edited the page to be consistent with Jolly's current public bio, that of a Republican senatorial candidate.

One section dealt with Jolly's long history with the Church of Scientology, including financial contributions he's gained from them and his attendance at political rallies hosted by the group. That was all replaced by the campaign with information detailing Jolly's work on flood insurance relief and his committment to reducing government spending. Another section detailed Jolly's career as a lobbyist, replacing that with his history of business ownership in the private sector. When Buzzfeed mentioned to Bascom that the original page contributions were done by long-time Wikipedia editors, in one case an award-winning editor, she repeated her claim that one of them worked for a rival's campaign. When asked to name that campaign?

“I have been told by numerous people who is behind it, but I can’t use that,” she said. “That would be unethical.”

Ah, yes, ethics. The most important of things, except when concerning trying to hide factual information from the public during an election cycle. How politician of you! And now that this has been sussed out, of course, we can all spend much time, energy, and screen-space discussing in volume all of the things that Jolly's campaign had tried to hide from us. The Streisand Effect is a bitter mistress, would-be Senator Jolly, and you've treated her poorly.

Filed Under: david jolly, florida, scientology, streisand effect, wikipedia

Why Has Tom Cruise's Reputation Faltered? Pshh, Because Of The Internet, Of Course!

from the nice-journalism-you-have-there dept

We gather here today to mourn the passing of one Tom Cruise, gentleman and movie star undone by, you guessed it, the damned internet. As this, ahem, article by Amy Nicholson notes, Tom Cruise has been "destroyed" by YouTube and internet journalism. He was also, apparently, our "last movie star." Oh, and he never jumped on Oprah's couch, either. Confused? Get ready, because this is going to be a strange, strange ride.

Nicholson, writing for the L.A. Weekly News, starts off her expose on how the internet killed Tom Cruise by sending us down memory lane.

You can probably picture it in your head: Tom Cruise, dressed in head-to-toe black, looming over a cowering Oprah as he jumps up and down on the buttermilk-colored couch like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Cruise bouncing on that couch is one of the touchstones of the last decade, the punchline every time someone writes about his career. There's just one catch: It never happened.

It's a breathtaking discovery to find out that this is all apparently some kind of CGI mega-conspiracy to dethrone a man who is still quite alive and very much still making big budget movies.

That video, which shows Tom Cruise jumping on Orpah's freaking couch, never actually happened apparently. The mind reels knowing that, as Nicholson states, just like "Humphrey Bogart saying, "Play it again, Sam," Tom Cruise jumping on a couch is one of our mass hallucinations." That video, according to her, single-video-edly destroyed Tom Cruise's still-ongoing-career. Honestly, I don't even know where to begin with an article that starts off with two so clearly incorrect premises.

Nicholson's idea for continuing the article consists of two pages about how awesome Tom Cruise is that would be better described as adoration than prose. The only mildly interesting bit in the whole section consists of how well his publicist at the time, Pat Kingsley, controlled the press.

She was adamant about keeping Cruise out of the tabloids. At press junkets, she demanded that journalists sign contracts swearing not to sell their quotes to the supermarket rags. Then Kingsley expanded her reach and insisted that all TV interviewers destroy their tapes after his segment had aired. Reporters were exasperated, but there wasn't much they could do about it. Kingsley had a slew of other big talents (Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, Al Pacino) on her roster. Thanks to media consolidation, she was able to keep the media on track by making only a few phone calls threatening to cut off access.

Well, she sounds like a real snuggle bear, that one, but Nicholson's point is made later when she describes the villain in this story: the internet. Oh, and us, too. We're totally to blame for Tom Cruise's reputation taking a turn.

With gossip sites mushrooming like a nuclear cloud, Kingsley's fear tactics no longer worked — in fact, she wasn't even around to wield them. She'd spent a decade and a half shielding Cruise from questions about his religion. But as Scientology increasingly drew fire from the media, Cruise seemed to have decided to be more vocal about defending his beliefs. When he sought to promote Scientology on his press tour for The Last Samurai in 2003, Kingsley later told The Hollywood Reporter, she told him to cool it...When their faster, meaner formula worked, the old guard was forced to follow suit. In May, People's blog, then a half-hearted affair, ran seven stories about Tom Cruise. In June, it ran 25.

In other words, the explosion of internet blogging nixed the need for access to celebrities, because the audiences didn't really want to hear interviews, they just wanted gossip. Nicholson argues that the timing for this explosion coincided almost perfectly with the timing of Cruise's Oprah appearance in which he did, but didn't, jump on a couch. She argues that if we had all seen the entire interview instead of simply watching YouTube clips, we would have understood not only that Cruise never jumped on a couch, but that his behavior was perfectly in line with the atmosphere of the show, because there were screaming women everywhere. One wonders how the Beatles managed not to jump on all the things every time they got off a plane, but I digress. I have watched the entire interview and Cruise isn't saved by context (Link to Part 2 of the YouTube series, and one jump happens about 45 seconds in, but you can find all parts there to watch the entire thing). Things only got worse when people decided that having a sense of humor was kind of fun.

A week later, [Andy] Baio hosted another funny video he found on a private sharing site, a short mash-up of Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Cruise's appearance on Oprah, two pop culture jokes from that May. Dubbed "Tom Cruise Kills Oprah," the movie star cackles in slow-motion as he blasts the talk-show host with a jolt of Jedi lightning. Baio thought the video was "awesome." He put it online and, just as "Star Wars Kid" had before, it blew up. This time, however, it wasn't just the geeks linking to his video — it was MSNBC and USA Today.

Parodying famous people? Oh, what new horrors the cruel internet always seems to bring. Never mind that this kind of thing was done for fun and profit since around forever, this is on the internet, so it's totally way worse. When Saturday Night Live did it all those years ago it was fine, but now the simple creatures of the citizenry think they can have fun? At the expense of our Lord Tom Cruise, whose name we exhault and upon whom we heap our praise? Please. And remember, that couch jumping thing never happened. Cruise was just, you know, er, standing on the couch. Seriously.

The distinction between standing and jumping is small but significant. We imagine Cruise bouncing on the couch — we can even picture it — because the Internet convinced us it happened. The echoing blogosphere screaming "Kills!" and "Jumps!" rewrote over what little of the actual episode people saw.

Except the he did jump on that damned couch, I've seen the video of it, you can't deny it, and oh my god why are we freaking talking about this? What Nicholson hints at, but never allows her article to realize, is that the Oprah appearance and the internet's reaction to it have played such a tiny role in the downturn of Tom Cruise's reputation that I don't even really know how she got to focusing on it. If we're going to be blunt, Tom Cruise's reputation fell when he told the world about Scientology and people became interested enough in it to find out how absolutely horrifying it is, when he told the public that they shouldn't take prescribed antidepressant's and that you could combat suicide with his most odd of religions, and when he appeared strange and manic on a whole series of appearances, rather than just Oprah's. Hell, the Oprah interview isn't even his strangest. I'd argue this one, extolling the virtues of Scientology did far more harm to his reputation than any other single thing out there.

But my larger question is why are we so busy defending Tom Cruise and demonizing the internet. And why are we saying stuff that happened didn't? That's just weird.

Filed Under: amy nicholson, blame, couch, culture, internet, jumping, memory, oprah, scientology, tom cruise

Crazy Amazon Seller Threatens the Wrath of Scientology on People Who Give Negative Feedback

from the xenu-would-be-proud dept

I have to admit, I'm kind of thankful the Church of Scientology exists. I mean, between their inability to photoshop their own rallies and their dedication to using IP laws to simultaneously silence criticism while Streisanding themselves into internet oblivion, the jokes practically write themselves. I personally know this, because whenever I see that a close friend or family member is having a bad day, I simply tap them on the shoulder, say "Church of Scientology", and then we both laugh and move on with a much better, funnier day. For me, it's the futility of it all that is so hilarious, and I'll be Xenu'd if they just can't keep making the same mistakes.

Take the story Rich Kulawiec writes us about, for instance. It apparently starts with a hapless Amazon seller called Hannah's Attic And Place accidentally offering his wares for pennies on the dollar due to an errant youngster. When some customers placed orders, they were subsequently informed that the pricing had been a mistake. This grated upon one buyer, who complained in the reviews section. And then the complainer found out that the seller was a hardy little David-Miscaviage-in-training, with all the awesome threatening behavior one would expect from such a person.

My favorite part about this letter is how it goes from zero to crazy in less than a hundred words. "First, let me apologize. Then let me tell you all about the horrific things I'm going to do to you for having an opinion!" Delightful. Here's what's most fun about this: despite nobody knowing for sure that this seller is a Scientology whackjob, despite nobody having any actual confirmation that a simple online review has resulted in attention from the infamous SeaOrg buckets of crazy, that organization has made themselves such a wonderful caricature that it all just might be possible. After all, we can be damned sure that Scientology has unleashed horrific evils on all of us before.

You bastards...

Now, while the seller has since gone to some lengths to delete everything they could from Amazon, one would think that both Amazon and law enforcement would be quite interested in folks threatening buyers. After all, the Church of Scientology might have many celebrities, and regular folks, constantly filling their coffers in exchange for having someone twist their thetans or whatever, but they've tangled with the U.S. government before and got a nice black eye over it. And to really incur retribution in America, making waves for a billion dollar corporation like Amazon ain't gonna win you any favors, either.

In the meantime, Hannah's Attic And Place (we must not forget about the place!) and their threats have gone viral, Streisanding around the interwebz to make sure everyone knows what jerks they are. That's so much more effective than the simple negative review they were trying to get taken down in the first place. Oh, Scientology, never stop being crazy.

Filed Under: reviews, scientology
Companies: amazon

In 2009, NYPD Issued 'Surveillance Request' To 'Identify' Anonymous Members During Their Anti-Scientology Rally

from the people-wearing-masks-are-inherently-suspicious dept

Recently, Adrian Chen tweeted out something interesting: a link to an internal NYPD document detailing a "surveillance request" to stake out a rally by Anonymous at the Church of Scientology. Its purpose? To "identify as many members of as possible." The report goes on to note that the difficulty level of this task might be upped significantly.

Please note that members of the group frequently wears masks covering their entire faces.

This is an important distinction, as certain members of the surveillance unit might have been more inclined to snoop on more easily identified, unmasked citizens. Now, I can understand why the NYPD might want to uncover the identities of Anonymous members as the (not really an) organization has wreaked a lot of havoc in various areas, most of them online. But there is something unsettling about a police force attending demonstrations and rallies to perform intel rather than to keep the peace.

But actions taken during Occupy Wall Street show that the PD's agenda usually means treating protesters (as well as anyone with a camera) as criminals. And attempting to "unmask" participants in an Anonymous rally lumps all attendees in with the activist group, even if many of them have never actively participated in any illegal activities. It also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Anonymous' "structure," i.e., there is none. There's no "head" to capture and mount on the metaphorical wall. There's also no "tail" to drag off to HQ and sweat down in hopes of it offering up higher-ranked members.

While it's true that you may find some criminals within the ranks of protesters for any cause, heading into protests with the intent of compiling a "To Arrest" list puts police officers into entirely the wrong mindset. There's enough "us vs. them" attitude floating around already. This simply creates an antagonism that skews the perception of every witnessed activity. Peaceful protests are now just riots waiting to happen. It's not people united for a single cause, it's a hive mind operating under a devious directive. The whole thing is unhealthy for both the police and the public.

Also worth noting is the fact that this occurred before the Occupy protests, when Anonymous targeted the NYPD for its acts of brutality against the protesters, meaning this attempt to unmask members wasn't a retaliatory act (which isn't OK but is at least a rationale) or an attempt to find those who made threats against the department.

That being said, the surveillance request (what there is of it) contains the following sentence, which is notable both for a.) the inventive disgustingness of the act and b.) not being accompanied by a drunk and disorderly citation.

Most recently, a member ran into the church covered in vaseline and pubic hairs.

Yeah. This actually happened. And it also included nail clippings. This extremely random act of civil disobedience was denounced by irritated, non-Anonymous Scientology critics and the greased-up pube delivery system was arrested, briefly investigated and discharged by the NYPD.

Most notably, there's no reason given for the surveillance unless you count Vaseline Man as a valid impetus. The entire form is almost completely blank, giving the whole thing an appearance of "just because." Maybe the NYPD felt No One's Personal Army posed a threat to Mayor Bloomberg's Personal Army. Or maybe the Church of Scientology wields just as much power as people attribute to it.

Filed Under: anonymous, nypd, protests, rallies, scientology

Church Of Scientology Uses Copyright, Trademark, And Cyberbullying Laws To Silence Critical Parody

from the still-not-a-religion dept

For faith-based hilarity, you just can't do any better than the Church of Scientology. These photoshop masters have built for themselves the kind of reputation normally reserved for Stasi-style secret police. The constant target of Anonymous, ex-members, and every critical-thinking person on the planet are best known for gobbling up shallow celebrities, creepily persecuting critics and ex-members, and possessing the monumental testicles required to include a freaking space opera in their faith. As part of their attempts to silence critics, they've regularly run up against the wider internet, often using IP laws to gag speech.

Well, it turns out you just can't teach a kinda-old non-religion religion new tricks. Reader John alerts us to a case in which the Church of Scientology is using copyright, trademark and cyberbullying laws to silence a parody criticizing the "church", Will Smith, and the attempt to destroy film making commonly known as After Earth. Recently, they demanded that GoDaddy nix cheerupwillsmith.com, which parodied the church and the film, over the use of their logos, a letter from church-leader David Miscavige, a photo of the same Miscavige, and a parody portrayal of Mr. Miscavige.

Pointing to the presence of CSI logos and a photograph of Mr. Miscavige on the site, CSI told GoDaddy the site violated CSI’s copyright and trademark rights, and asked the company to take it down. GoDaddy promptly complied. CSI also claimed that the creators of the site had violated California Penal Code section 528.5, which forbids the credible impersonation of a human person online. Section 528.5 was intended to be used to combat cyberbullying; as we anticipated, however, it’s now being used to target political speech.

As the EFF notes while placing the Church of Scientology on their takedown hall of shame list, we have some major problems here. First, the copyright claim fails on the grounds of fair use, since the use was critical parody, with only the necessary usage used therein. The trademark claim is also pitiful for many of the same reasons, though we can add that the website was not attempting to compete in the market of religion with the "church." As for the penal code claim, it is true that that law was meant to combat cyberbullying, but I think the EFF might be off when they say:

Finally, the claim that the site violated the California Penal Code is equally absurd. Section 528.5 applies only to "credible" impersonations. No viewer would think the site offered a credible impersonation of Mr. Miscavige.

Au contraire, bonjour. Given the absurdity of the actions by these clowns, it would take a great deal to convince me of anything in which they are not capable. However, I don't think their own depravity is reason for which they could be charged with cyberbullying.

So congratulations, Scientologists. You've now made the EFF hall of shame. And if you don't like how you're portrayed there or here, you can go audit yourselves.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, cyberbullying, scientology, trademark

This Week's Bad Photoshopping Lesson Comes From Scientology

from the the-thetans-did-it dept

The universe has a sense of humor. I'm convinced of it. See, as someone who believes that humor is a wonderful way to deal with otherwise disheartening topics, I'm amazed at how often the world around me will give me something to laugh at when I'm feeling blue. Take the world's current climate on the topic of religion, for instance. It'd be very easy to get down in the dumps over the Westboro Baptist Church, religious fundamentalists engaging in acts of terror, and the never-ending saga known as the Middle East "peace" process. None of those things are laughing matters. But then, reading the forlorn expression on my face, the universe sends me another story from the Church of Scientology.

The Tom-Cruise-iest religion on the planet took a break from their attempt to destroy free speech to celebrate the grand-mega opening of their new ironically named Ideal Organization in Portland by producing the worst photoshopped picture this side of the Iranian military.

The crowd was around 450-750 people. But the church claims it was more like 2,500, and it Photoshopped in the proof. Except the proof is about as convincing as your thetan's origin story. In reality, there were no people in the right-hand side of the photo. There was actually a line of rented trees set up to block the view of people not so friendly to Scientology (see the photo below), as well as police blocking off a four-block radius for the event. And it's not just that the picture was doctored, it's that it was done quite poorly. They added people right on top of the trees in the altered section.

Tony Ortega has the two photos that demonstrate this. First was the "official" photo from the Church which is clearly photoshopped. And then a shot from a different angle showing that the people on the right section above aren't actually there. What was an attempt to make turnout of the "event" look bigger than it was resulted in, at best, Scientology looking silly yet again for their combination of secretiveness and lying about their own events. Or, at worst, it suggests that Scientology turns human beings into a kind of hybrid tree-people, in which case we're all going to be subject to an aphid plague that may undo all of humanity. Ahhhh!

So a word of friendly advice to my Scientologist friends: brainwashed graphic designers are a better asset than brainwashed Tom Cruises. For ever and ever. Amen.

Filed Under: exaggeration, photography, photoshop, scientology
Companies: scientology

Doing Sponsored Content Badly: 'Native Advertising' Isn't Native If It Sucks

from the not-how-to-do-it dept

There's been an uproar about The Atlantic's decision yesterday to run sponsored content from Scientology, which consisted of a pretty poorly done advertorial about Scientology's "successes" in the past year. The comments on the piece included a bunch of "wow this is just awesome!" type comments that suggest both moderation and pre-planned comments from supporters. After widespread outcry about The Atlantic going in such a direction, the piece was pulled. Recently, there's also been similar (though slightly different) "sponsored" posts on Buzzfeed, in which staff plaster some company's name over a "top 10" or "top 15" list that they slap together -- often by pulling images from other sources (Reddit is a popular one), without making much effort to credit whoever came up with the content. There's even been a fair bit of controversy over the Associated Press' recent decision to allow sponsored tweets from Samsung during CES.

All of these seem like examples of doing "sponsored content" badly -- just as more and more publications are getting into sponsored content. While it's good to see publications taking some risks and trying something new, the downside is that it has the potential to completely scare off companies from doing any forms of sponsored content, even when it can be done much better. For many, many years, we've talked about how how content is advertising and advertising is content, and those who get it right are going to go far. The problem is that it's tough to get right -- often because the marketers themselves are so focused on old school "advertising" in which they have to keep pushing their message and their message alone, they miss out on the fact that this backfires in a big bad way every single time.

There's been a lot of talk lately about "native advertising" -- which is the buzzphrase around this kind of content these days. Many point out that "advertorial" is nothing new, and that's accurate, but true native content is something different. For years, when we've talked about these concepts, everyone has complained about said "advertorial", suggesting that it's annoying or misleading -- and that's been the problem with the examples above. But, when done right, it doesn't need to be either annoying or misleading. And we need to get to that point. Five years ago we put forth some basic concepts for why the world needed to move towards this model, and I still think they hold true today:

1. The captive audience is dead. There is no captive audience online. Everyone surfing the web has billions of choices on what they can be viewing, and they don't want to be viewing intrusive and annoying ads. They'll either ignore them, block them or go elsewhere.
2. Advertising is content. You can't think of ads as separate things any more. Without a captive audience, there's no such thing as "advertising" any more. It's just content. And it needs to be good/interesting/relevant content if you want to get anyone to pay attention to it.
3. Content is advertising. Might sound like a repeat of the point above, and in some ways it is -- but it's highlighting the flip side. Any content is advertising. It's advertising something. Techdirt content "advertises" our business even if you don't realize it. Every bit of content advertises something, whether on purpose or not.
4. Content needs to be useful/engaging/interesting. This simply ties all of that together. If you want anyone to pay attention to your content (which is advertising something, whether on purpose or not) it needs to be compelling and engaging.

The problem is that many marketers (and many publications) seem to really miss out on that last point. The content -- whether it's advertising, native content, advertorial or whatever -- needs to be useful/engaging/interesting. The Scientology advertorial and the AP sponsored tweets really fell down on that point. The Buzzfeed content at least got much of that aspect correct, but fell down on the kinds of things that often piss people off: poorly attributed copied content. There's no reason why Buzzfeed couldn't have done such a collection with proper attribution and most of the controversy would have been avoided.

And that's the real point here: it is possible to do "sponsored content" in a compelling way. I still like to point to the example that we did a few years back with UPS sponsoring us to do some videos about the topics we already talk about, leading to things like the following video about the economics of abundance: When we posted that we were actually surprised (but thrilled) to find out that many in our community were happy to see projects like that move forward. That was because it was about creating useful and engaging content that wasn't misleading or just pure propaganda.

The world will get there eventually, but it's an ongoing struggle to get both publications and marketers to realize that "native advertising" isn't native if the content sucks and no one wants to see it (especially if it's pure propaganda, or otherwise enrages people). Some continue to insist that any and all such sponsored content is, by definition, problematic, but I don't think it needs to be. It's just that we need to get people in marketing firms and at publications to move past such a view of native advertising. The Atlantic should have known ahead of time how people would react. Buzzfeed should have made sure its content didn't set off a firestorm. And the companies paying for such ads should also learn that if they're just creating annoying content, it's not helping anyone, least of all themselves.

Filed Under: advertising is content, buzzfeed, content is advertising, native advertising, scientology, sponsored content, the atlantic
Companies: ap, buzzfeed, the atlantic

Anonymity Online Under Attack: China And Australia

from the anonymity-rights? dept

For the most part, the US has recognized that the right to be anonymous is a form of protected free speech -- and yet, anonymity is constantly under attack. Of course, the right to be anonymous is not absolute, but there is value in allowing anonymous speech to occur. With the right to anonymity under attack in the US, it's even worse in other countries, where such rights aren't even seen as vital as it is in the US. China, for example, is now requiring news websites to force all commenters to reveal their real identity. Apparently, the government issued a directive demanding such info from all commenters, though, they don't want to admit it. Even though the newspapers are claiming that they're doing it to increase "civility" and "social responsibility," quietly they admit that it's the government. As for why the gov't won't just come out and say it's for civility and social responsibility (even if it's to quiet critics), apparently the government is afraid of public backlash:

"The influence of public opinion on the Net is still too big."

I guess that's why the idea is to silence them.

Meanwhile, as reports came in last week suggesting that Australia's latest plan to censor the internet is just about dead, Slashdot notes that Scientologists down under are asking the Australian gov't to implement severe restrictions on what they refer to as "Religious Vilification" (which, one assumes, means any anti-Scientology comments, among other things). The proposal also suggests that any such site should not be allowed to be operated anonymously. Apparently, Scientologists took the name of the group "Anonymous" that organized protests against the group quite literally.

Filed Under: anonymity, australia, china, free speech, scientology

Anonymous Might Not Be So Anonymous; Member Pleads Guilty To Scientology DoS

from the so-much-for-that-plan dept

While I can sympathize with the concerns that some folks have over Scientology, it did seem like the massive denial of service (DoS) attack against the group put on by "Anonymous" (basically a group of griefers from some online message boards) seemed to go a bit too far (and, yes, I recognize that many griefers think that their whole reason for being is to "go too far"). Now it appears that one of the kids involved in the denial of service attack has been arrested and agreed to plead guilty for the attack, meaning that at least some members of "Anonymous" aren't quite as anonymous as they believed. In the end, the whole thing seems to have done nothing much. It was a nuisance for Scientology, but allowed the group to portray itself as a victim, and certainly didn't do much of anything to slow the organization down.

Filed Under: anonymous, denial of service, dos, scientology

Thousands Of Anti-Scientology Videos Taken Down From YouTube Via DMCA Takedowns

from the there's-a-lawsuit-in-here-somewhere dept

The Church of Scientology is rather notorious for its heavy-handed responses to any critics -- often using copyright claims to stop them from criticizing the organization. The latest is that the EFF is reporting that over 4,000 critical videos have been taken down off of YouTube due to DMCA takedown notices issued by an organization named American Rights Counsel, LLC. Many of the folks who created the videos are immediately filing DMCA counter-notices, meaning that some of the videos are already back up, but it will be interesting to see where this goes.

The EFF hasn't been shy in the past in filing lawsuits against those who issue bogus DMCA takedown notices -- so if it turns out that these are bogus, then expect some lawsuits. In the meantime, it really does make you wonder what whoever issued the takedowns was thinking. This action will only serve to get a lot more attention directed at the critical videos, rather than do anything to silence them.

Filed Under: dmca, scientology, takedowns, youtube
Companies: google, scientology, youtube