Mormon Church replaces it's historian w attorney

[_Infymus]

He mentioned the church had hired someone who does "search engine optomization". That's just a euphemism for finding ways to fool a search engine into changing its mind about how to rank the pages it has about something, in order to get one's own pages up at the top. So has anyone noticed the church playing any of the familiar games like link-farming and whatnot to try to drive out all of the anti sites from the first pages of Google? Sounds interesting.

The MoreGoodFoundation has been trying this for years to little avail. David Neeleman is spending a small fortune to maintain the some 3000+ websites they've registered in order to trick people into going back to LDS.org.

It cracks me up because even if they manage to lead questioning members to LDS.org, the need to find the truth will always lead them away.

When I started questioning the cult I really began seeing that every single path that lead back to the cult was a dead end. There would never be any information there except pay, pray, obey.

Regardless, the MGF, or Peterson's little "voices" corner of the world are really not doing much good in my opinion. I still see a constant flood coming into the Ex-Mormon communities.

All the crap they're going to do isn't going to work. What will work is when they throw legislation behind something like SOPA/PIPA - that way they can find alternate means of shutting down a website.

[_Yoda]

What will work is when they throw legislation behind something like SOPA/PIPA - that way they can find alternate means of shutting down a website.

Hey, Infy, I am unfamiliar with what these acts entail. Without going into pages of detail, could you outline the basics, as far as how these acts would shut websites down?

I am curious as a webmaster, myself.

[_DarkHelmet]

Keep in mind that Marlin Jensen is a Democrat.

[_Blixa]

What will work is when they throw legislation behind something like SOPA/PIPA - that way they can find alternate means of shutting down a website.

Hey, Infy, I am unfamiliar with what these acts entail. Without going into pages of detail, could you outline the basics, as far as how these acts would shut websites down?

I am curious as a webmaster, myself.

Read something from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for a start:

https://www.eff.org/search/site/sopa

This is a good flowchart version of the issues involved: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/19/pipaso ... nd-ac.html

Clay Shirky's TED talk on SOPA: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/19/clay-s ... a-bad.html

Another good video presentation: http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa

To me though, it's almost enough to know that the MPAA and Lamar Smith (who introduced the horrible DMCA) are for it.

[_Morley]

Read something from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for a start:

https://www.eff.org/search/site/sopa

This is a good flowchart version of the issues involved: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/19/pipaso ... nd-ac.html

Clay Shirky's TED talk on SOPA: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/19/clay-s ... a-bad.html

Another good video presentation: http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa

To me though, it's almost enough to know that the MPAA and Lamar Smith (who introduced the horrible DMCA) are for it.

Yes.

[_Mercury]

He mentioned the church had hired someone who does "search engine optomization". That's just a euphemism for finding ways to fool a search engine into changing its mind about how to rank the pages it has about something, in order to get one's own pages up at the top. So has anyone noticed the church playing any of the familiar games like link-farming and whatnot to try to drive out all of the anti sites from the first pages of Google? Sounds interesting.

For the most part its a pretty scummy business. Its like saying that they hired high pressure telemarketers.

Why does god need SEO?

[_Yoda]

He mentioned the church had hired someone who does "search engine optomization". That's just a euphemism for finding ways to fool a search engine into changing its mind about how to rank the pages it has about something, in order to get one's own pages up at the top. So has anyone noticed the church playing any of the familiar games like link-farming and whatnot to try to drive out all of the anti sites from the first pages of Google? Sounds interesting.

I hate to admit this, but when I was a Moderator at FAIR/MAD, I gave DanG a JavaScript code that would auto-link a list of anti-Mormon sites back to LDS.org. If anyone posted a link to these sites on the board, they would be immediately directed to LDS.org instead.

MDB was on that list at the time.

Since I am not an avid reader of MDD, I am not sure if they still use this technique, but the JavaScript is out there, and not difficult.

[_Blixa]

Some moar reading for you, Liz. In penance for your awful deed ; )

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-copy ... -congress/

[_Yoda]

Read something from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for a start:

https://www.eff.org/search/site/sopa

This is a good flowchart version of the issues involved: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/19/pipaso ... nd-ac.html

Clay Shirky's TED talk on SOPA: http://boingboing.net/2012/01/19/clay-s ... a-bad.html

Another good video presentation: http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa

To me though, it's almost enough to know that the MPAA and Lamar Smith (who introduced the horrible DMCA) are for it.

Thanks for the link, Blixa!

I particularly enjoyed this article:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/12/s ... d-analysis

Here is a great gem:

None of this means that whatever legislation is adopted should not be carefully drafted to minimize even potential conflicts with principles of free expression.

Here is finally a statement where EFF and Floyd Abrams agree — but SOPA clearly does not minimize any conflicts with free expression. Even in his letter to Congress endorsing SOPA, Abrams admitted that SOPA will censor non-infringing speech, stating that “When injunctive relief includes blocking domain names, the blockage of non-infringing or protected content may result.”

Many First Amendment lawyers don’t take that result lightly. As a letter signed by over 100 other law professors observed, SOPA and Protect-IP “represents the most ill-advised and destructive intellectual property legislation in recent memory.” Harvard Law School’s Laurence Tribe, one of the nation’s foremost experts on constitutional law, wrote to Congress concluding the bill plainly violates the First Amendment because it “an overbroad scheme that will predictably result in depriving U.S. audiences of protected, non-infringing speech.”

SOPA would not just go after copyright infringers; it leaves no one on the Internet untouched. Twitter’s general counsel, Alex Mcgillivray, recently wrote a great hypothetical illustrating how site-wide censorship will affect millions of “ordinary, non-infringing users.” As Washington Post blogger Alexandria Petri remarked, “This isn't even throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This is bludgeoning the baby repeatedly with a sledgehammer and then throwing out the whole bathroom.”

[_Yoda]

Some moar reading for you, Liz. In penance for your awful deed ; )

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-copy ... -congress/

LOL! Thanks, Blixa! I will "go and sin no more". :-)