DiscussMormonism.com

On the RCrocket thread, Trevor wrote,

Why the concern? Because these people have money and power. They have friends in high places. Judges and senators sympathetic to their cause. I don't believe in massive conspiracies, but I do believe that these guys will do whatever is in their legal power to stamp out criticism. If that means "outing" every internet critic who does not want to be outed, then I have no doubt they will at least consider it. The criticism will not end, of course, but it will be decreased somewhat. And since they view it as their sacred duty to document and fight such criticism, I can imagine they will do what they can to pursue every avenue available.

I thought this post deserved a thread of its own.

What do you think?

After seeing what happened to folks like Meldum, Bob McCue and the missionary magazine guy; after knowing about the SCMC; after knowing the church is monitoring over a thousand non-believer/apostate sites (If I recall correctly), after seeing how some LDS posters have tried to harm others, do you think there is concern?

What is ahead?

~dancer~

For the sake of accuracy, let me make a slight correction. In the thread, I edited "these people," which sounds oddly conspiratorial, to "LDS Church." It is the LDS Church that I believe has the money, power, friends, and other resources to pursue whatever avenues it deems useful and prudent to protect its image. And, as I have said elsewhere, one needs to factor in the reputations of prominent, powerful, and wealthy members of the LDS Church, who undoubtedly do not want their faith looking bad. The Church will help protect their interests, just as the Church benefits from their association. Nothing about this is "sinister" or "conspiratorial." As far as I can tell, it is simply the way the world works.

TD,

I think that the tighter they hold on to their power over their members, the less effective they will become. It doesn't have so much to do with conservative values as it is the new lines they draw that the members are now forbidden to cross.

In time, I think whatever their attempting to do to crack down, it will ultimately be a futile attempt. Could take another generation.

inc.

MBs? Mercedes Benz cars or trucks?

And, as I have said elsewhere, one needs to factor in the reputations of prominent, powerful, and wealthy members of the LDS Church, who undoubtedly do not want their faith looking bad.

Indeed, they are menacing. If the church had it's way, it would be a dark time for anyone with a difference of opinion. Given current circumstances, some are in higher risk categories than others. Certainly, where Mormon funds are hard at work, such as in Mormon studies; have a back up career plan. On the other end of the spectrum, consider Brent Metcalfe. I really kind of doubt he'd ever have anything to worry about given his career as a video game designer.

I believe it is quite possible that the LDS church will become as aggressive as Scientology in pursuing online critics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientolog ... e_Internet

The LDS church has already gone after the Tanners:

http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Mormon_Church ... r_handbook

Both these groups desperately want to silence critics, because they cannot formulate effective rebuttals against their charges. One interesting omen is the fact that the church has trademarked the term "Mormon", like scientology trademarked the term "scientology". Scientologists used this fact to try and shut down a board critical of scientology. Whether or not these sort of lawsuits are successful is almost beside the point - the annoyance of it and the fearful prospect of having to spend a lot of money defending oneself against a deep pocketed organization is the deterrent.

The LDS church will have to weigh pros and cons here, because obviously being so aggressive with critics comes with a PR cost, and the LDS church is extremely PR sensitive. But I think that will be the only deterrent. I think the leaders would feel morally justified harassing critics through legal venues, and the church has a long history of using malicious and seemingly amoral tactics against critics.

Reading through "Scientology versus the Internet," I was struck by several hauntingly familiar passages:

Scientologists and hired third parties regularly flood the newsgroup with pro-scientology messages, vague anti-scientology messages, irrelevant comments, and accusations that other posters are secret Scientologists intent on tracking and punishing posters.

Of course, the Church has its own [hired?] guns, but we have never been able to determine whether they are engaged in derailing conversations as anything more than a voluntary pastime (DCP).

In the early days of the World Wide Web, Scientology attempted a similar strategy to make finding websites critical of the organization more difficult. Scientology employed Web designers to write thousands of Web pages for their site, thus flooding early search engines.

Can anyone say More Good Foundation?

In August 2007, MSNBC quoted Associated Press in an article on the Wikipedia Scanner, that computers owned by the Church of Scientology have been removing criticism in the Scientology entry on Wikipedia. A Fox News article also reported that Church of Scientology computers had been used to delete references between Scientology and the Cult Awareness Network, in the article on the Cult Awareness Network on Wikipedia.

It has been determined that edits to Mormon entries at wikipedia have originated at LDS Church Headquarters.

The similarities are eerie, aren't they?

I wanted to comment on this one in particular:

Scientologists and hired third parties regularly flood the newsgroup with pro-scientology messages, vague anti-scientology messages, irrelevant comments, and accusations that other posters are secret Scientologists intent on tracking and punishing posters.

This is why RFM eventually evolved to have a strong-handed moderating policy, in which "defending the faith" is strictly banned. Back in the early days, which I well remember, so many believers logged on and made utterly inane comments that it was difficult to keep any thread on track at all. Now, I have no idea if this was deliberate or not, as you say. Maybe they just acted out of frustration and it wasn't preplanned. But it was quite effective in derailing almost every thread. I quit the board in disgust for a long time afterwards. They resolved this problem by giving moderators the free hand to delete any post that smacks of this sort of "defense of the faith". Of course, that resolution has created other problems, a certain type of climate at RFM that not all exmormons are comfortable with, but they had little other choice, given the constant harassment by believers. I think the only reason this board isn't quite as plagued with it is due to its small size. If MD grew to the popularity of RFM, Shades would probably have to resort to strong-armed moderating as well.

by the way, wheat has been doing an excellent demonstration of this harassing behavior by believers on this board today.

What a boring post!

I can't see how much of anything has changed with you __ except the specific things about which you are certain.

As far as Heber C. Kimball's proposed solution to pressing social problems _ sounds good to me. Hang a few gays, prostitutes, child molesters, defrauders, and the like in the public square, and before too long you'll have produced a much more hospitable environment for making and raising families.

Start with the apostates ...

http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... php?t=7007

Runtu = the Mark Hoffman of the exmormon world.

http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... php?t=7002

Crocket has a long history of the same disruptive behavior by posting incessantly about anonymity.

It all reminds me of when Shades first started his board, and morningstar/"boogers" posted constantly with references to bodily fluids (hence her name). It's all just variations of the same disruptive behavior that has only one purpose - divert attention from the criticism that cannot be successfully countered.