Problematic John Dehlin, a short list

[Maureen]

I make this post with the permission of the woman in question.

A woman has reported some online behavior of Dehlin’s which has made her uncomfortable. It consisted of several instances where Dehlin liked certain social media pictures in a batch. At first, she found the first instance forgettable, even though the “likes” seemed to be careful selections of her “sexy” pictures while mostly skipping her other content.

When it happened again, and then again, including posts that he “liked” a second time—which means he had to unlike them and then like them again—she felt it was deliberate and pointed.

OK, I found this person on the MS Facebook page who complained about JD under his request about how exmormon men should treat women.

My understanding, now that I have seen her posts, is that she was freaked out that JD spent a lot of time on her page "liking" pictures, posts and videos all at once. It was hard to tell what some of the pictures were because they were screenshots of Facebook notifications of JD's "likes" and very small to see. I find it hard to believe he liked, then unliked, then reliked a picture. It was probably Facebook just sending duplicate notifications of the same "like". And to me, most of the things he liked were normal pictures. It is odd that he would "like" multiple things all in one sitting. Only JD can answer why he did it that way.

I still think she over reacted.

M.

[Moksha]

... problems with the word "provocative" tells me you heard me.

That reminds me of men not being chastised for porn shoulders. Anyway, I have obtained what may be an exclusive photo of what may be Rosebud and Dehlin involved with this very idea of provocativeness:

[Meadowchik]

Do you mean on her own wall? On what day?

Some of it's on her own wall and some of it remains on the Mormon Stories wall. I don't recall the exact dates of the posts. Mid-March, about two months after he liked her pics in January.

You should be able to easily find the posts yourself.

No, I don't see any such posts on her wall. It sounds like you are taking information from elsewhere. Feel free to private message me the link.

That Googledoc letter you posted identifies both the woman and her husband by their real names. I don't know who redacted that thing, but they did a Crap job.

I'm starting to wonder if these redaction jobs are intentionally crappy. JP posted Rosebud's entire document dump, with every private person's name left unobscured at least once, and many highly personal details left intact.

Then, whoopsies! And down it comes pending "better redaction." Except by then it's too late because the materials have already been read, downloaded, and reproduced.

That is completely my mistake. I missed one instance each of their first names. The decision to redact their names was mine and I am mortified that I screwed it up.

[Meadowchik]

OK, I found this person on the MS Facebook page who complained about John Dehlin under his request about how exmormon men should treat women.

My understanding, now that I have seen her posts, is that she was freaked out that John Dehlin spent a lot of time on her page "liking" pictures, posts and videos all at once. It was hard to tell what some of the pictures were because they were screenshots of Facebook notifications of John Dehlin's "likes" and very small to see. I find it hard to believe he liked, then unliked, then reliked a picture. It was probably Facebook just sending duplicate notifications of the same "like". And to me, most of the things he liked were normal pictures. It is odd that he would "like" multiple things all in one sitting. Only John Dehlin can answer why he did it that way.

I still think she over reacted.

M.

I disagree. Dehlin specifically asked for women to offer do's and don'ts, and it was then that she said "don't do this:...."

I think that if there is a Facebook glitch that renotifies of the same likes, it is something that is likely linked to using multiple devices simultaneously or limited to a short time span. I highly doubt that it happens for likes which are weeks or months old.

[SaturdaysVoyeur]

No, I don't see any such posts on her wall. It sounds like you are taking information from elsewhere. Feel free to private message me the link.

Oh, look it up for yourself. I'm not going to dig through hundreds of posts a second time in order to spoonfeed you. Others here have managed to find the posts (rather quickly, since you helpfully provided us with their names), so I'm sure you can find them too.

That is completely my mistake. I missed one instance each of their first names. The decision to redact their names was mine and I am mortified that I screwed it up.

And just like JP: Whoopsies! My mistake! Little late now, isn't it? We all know who they are, and somebody has undoubtedly taken a screenshot by now. So there's no way for you effectively walk back this betrayal of their privacy. Were leaving Dehlin's wife, his employee, and his employee's husband's names unredacted all a big oopsie, too? (Dehlin's wife is a public figure in her own right, but I think it would be simple courtesy to remove her name from this kind of garbage.)

To be fair to you, the woman involved here doesn't seem to mind people knowing about SexyPicGate, since she left those posts publicly visible on Facebook. All you did was make it easier for us to dig up the additional context. Such as:

It took her several years to decide if she wanted to tell her story publicly. She implies there is trauma in her story (e.g., she needs to "go to a vulnerable place" in order to tell it).

She and her husband were just about to appear on Mormon Stories in January, so it's not unusual that Dehlin was reviewing their social media pages. Interview questions don't write themselves.

Being on the verge of telling an apparently difficult story was probably already producing some complicated emotions for her, since she indicates that this was an enormous decision for her. Then she suffers a head injury, which, by definition, causes things like confusion, memory loss, and problems with perception.

So, actually, you did her a big favor. Unintentionally, but a favor nonetheless. Because without that additional context, she would look like a nutcase, reading secret sexual communiques into goddamn Facebook likes.

I think that if there is a Facebook glitch that renotifies of the same likes, it is something that is likely linked to using multiple devices simultaneously or limited to a short time span. I highly doubt that it happens for likes which are weeks or months old.

It may not be a glitch at all, come to think of it. Facebook may have an algorithm (we wouldn't know; their algorithms are proprietary) that intentionally pushes renotifications in order to prompt users to revisit their posts. Facebook does everything it can to get people to engage and re-engage with their content.

Either way, I assure you the feature/glitch exists. I've seen Facebook send duplicate notifications. And nobody claimed weeks or months. The photos themselves may have been weeks or months old, but it's impossible to believe that she would have noticed he liked her pics once, and then noticed that he liked them again weeks or months later.

But even if he did like her pics twice....so-f'ing-what? They were pictures of her with her family on Christmas. Pictures of her hugging her husband. Pictures of her bundled up in a snowsuit. She's a beautiful young woman, but that doesn't make every image of her "sexy." At least one of them is a meme doesn't include any picture of her at all!

It's not Dehlin's behavior that's creepy and weird here. It's trying to portray Dehlin's behavior as sexual that's creepy and weird. Although the implicit assumption that such everyday images of a woman simply going about her life with her family are "sexy" is also a little creepy and weird.

[Meadowchik]

No, I don't see any such posts on her wall. It sounds like you are taking information from elsewhere. Feel free to private message me the link.

Oh, look it up for yourself. I'm not going to dig through hundreds of posts a second time in order to spoonfeed you. Others here have managed to find the posts (rather quickly, since you helpfully provided us with their names), so I'm sure you can find them too.

No, they're not there. I checked manually and I searched her profile for Dehlin. And while there are several posts that pop up about him, from when they were apparently still on good terms, there is nothing about this topic.

That is completely my mistake. I missed one instance each of their first names. The decision to redact their names was mine and I am mortified that I screwed it up.

And just like JP: Whoopsies! My mistake! Little late now, isn't it? We all know who they are, and somebody has undoubtedly taken a screenshot by now. So there's no way for you effectively walk back this betrayal of their privacy. Were leaving Dehlin's wife, his employee, and his employee's husband's names unredacted all a big oopsie, too? (Dehlin's wife is a public figure in her own right, but I think it would be simple courtesy to remove her name from this kind of garbage.)

To be fair to you, the woman involved here doesn't seem to mind people knowing about SexyPicGate, since she left those posts publicly visible on Facebook. All you did was make it easier for us to dig up the additional context. Such as:

It took her several years to decide if she wanted to tell her story publicly. She implies there is trauma in her story (e.g., she needs to "go to a vulnerable place" in order to tell it).

She and her husband were just about to appear on Mormon Stories in January, so it's not unusual that Dehlin was reviewing their social media pages. Interview questions don't write themselves.

Being on the verge of telling an apparently difficult story was probably already producing some complicated emotions for her, since she indicates that this was an enormous decision for her. Then she suffers a head injury, which, by definition, causes things like confusion, memory loss, and problems with perception.

So, actually, you did her a big favor. Unintentionally, but a favor nonetheless. Because without that additional context, she would look like a nutcase, reading secret sexual communiques into goddamn Facebook likes.

I think that if there is a Facebook glitch that renotifies of the same likes, it is something that is likely linked to using multiple devices simultaneously or limited to a short time span. I highly doubt that it happens for likes which are weeks or months old.

It may not be a glitch at all, come to think of it. Facebook may have an algorithm (we wouldn't know; their algorithms are proprietary) that intentionally pushes renotifications in order to prompt users to revisit their posts. Facebook does everything it can to get people to engage and re-engage with their content.

Either way, I assure you the feature/glitch exists. I've seen Facebook send duplicate notifications. And nobody claimed weeks or months. The photos themselves may have been weeks or months old, but it's impossible to believe that she would have noticed he liked her pics once, and then noticed that he liked them again weeks or months later.

But even if he did like her pics twice....so-f'ing-what? They were pictures of her with her family on Christmas. Pictures of her hugging her husband. Pictures of her bundled up in a snowsuit. She's a beautiful young woman, but that doesn't make every image of her "sexy." At least one of them is a meme doesn't include any picture of her at all!

It's not Dehlin's behavior that's creepy and weird here. It's trying to portray Dehlin's behavior as sexual that's creepy and weird. Although the implicit assumption that such everyday images of a woman simply going about her life with her family are "sexy" is also a little creepy and weird.

Nah, I think the information I shared here (not including my mistakes in the redaction) stands on its own. You and anyone else can have their own opinions about how it feels to get a batch of likes at once like that, and that does not invalidate how she felt.

It was not unreasonable for her to provide that feedback on his Facebook group post asking for feedback. You objecting to how she should feel about his online behavior still does not make her feedback unreasonable.

[Meadowchik]

So there's no way for you effectively walk back this betrayal of their privacy.

Redacting their names, since they're not public figures, is more about a board standard here. She had already given permission to share the letter in its entirety. But I still screwed up.

[dastardly stem]

I agree that he overreacted, stem. I am not sure how many times I need to concede that before we discover we don’t really disagree on that point.

Well that's really been my whole contention here. The degree of his over reaction is the problem considering the stated purpose of his community.

The question is why, and that appears to be where we really disagree. So, I don’t know about you, but I have never had any kind of following, never done any level of Ted Talk, never been featured in a newspaper article, never been interviewed on tv. In short, I have never been a public person. That feels nice, free, and relaxing to me. I felt really good just typing that. Since I have never been in John Dehlin’s shoes, and I really don’t want to be, I find myself thinking it could be pretty stressful. Now, he would definitely be better off if he were unflappable, but it looks like he isn’t. Still I extend a measure of sympathy and allowance to the person who has to deal with those pressures I would not want.

Much of his complaints about the church is it does not allow criticism. And yet he is less tolerant than the church when it comes to, not only criticism, but in this case , requested feedback.

Quick review because it seems to me like we keep talking about two different cases here.

John, attempting to appear to support women, requests for specific cases where exmo men mistreat or make exmo women uncomfortable.

She responds pointing out how his actions made her uncomfortable.

Whether or not he attempted to flirt, he proceeds to ban her and her friends, whoever they may be (assuming mostly women), deletes a number of their posts in his thread and then accuses her of being evil, exceedingly jealous of his lofty position, and wanting to take his whole organization down.

That is, of course, far more than some simple overreaction. It's a degree of overreaction that demonstrates that his livelihood, hanging his hat on problems with the church, are larger problems for him than they are for the church. Again why would he run over someone like that and yet complain about the church when the church is far less problematic on this front (I know that because I've made actual and harsh criticisms about the church and the church shrugs and moves in without throwing a fit.

As it is the big problem here has very little, if any, to do with whether he actually attempted to be flirty. It has everything to do with his cult-like activity.

[dastardly stem]

And though we disagree, kish, I consider it a massive deflection to justify his paranoia with cases that have nothing to do with him soliciting cases of women feeling mistreated.

I know I'm just repeating myself but it's apparent to me, his paranoia in trying to lead a community and mistreating people as a result is a problem, an unhealthy aspect of that which hes using people to profit off of.

[Meadowchik]

I agree that he overreacted, stem. I am not sure how many times I need to concede that before we discover we don’t really disagree on that point.

Well that's really been my whole contention here. The degree of his over reaction is the problem considering the stated purpose of his community.

The question is why, and that appears to be where we really disagree. So, I don’t know about you, but I have never had any kind of following, never done any level of Ted Talk, never been featured in a newspaper article, never been interviewed on tv. In short, I have never been a public person. That feels nice, free, and relaxing to me. I felt really good just typing that. Since I have never been in John Dehlin’s shoes, and I really don’t want to be, I find myself thinking it could be pretty stressful. Now, he would definitely be better off if he were unflappable, but it looks like he isn’t. Still I extend a measure of sympathy and allowance to the person who has to deal with those pressures I would not want.

Much of his complaints about the church is it does not allow criticism. And yet he is less tolerant than the church when it comes to, not only criticism, but in this case , requested feedback.

Quick review because it seems to me like we keep talking about two different cases here.

John, attempting to appear to support women, requests for specific cases where exmo men mistreat or make exmo women uncomfortable.

She responds pointing out how his actions made her uncomfortable.

Whether or not he attempted to flirt, he proceeds to ban her and her friends, whoever they may be (assuming mostly women), deletes a number of their posts in his thread and then accuses her of being evil, exceedingly jealous of his lofty position, and wanting to take his whole organization down.

That is, of course, far more than some simple overreaction. It's a degree of overreaction that demonstrates that his livelihood, hanging his hat on problems with the church, are larger problems for him than they are for the church. Again why would he run over someone like that and yet complain about the church when the church is far less problematic on this front (I know that because I've made actual and harsh criticisms about the church and the church shrugs and moves in without throwing a fit.

As it is the big problem here has very little, if any, to do with whether he actually attempted to be flirty. It has everything to do with his cult-like activity.

Agreed, except on some details. As far as I know Dehlin did not ban her, but he did delete some of her posts. He did however, delete and block a bunch of people who spoke up in support of her, including very civil commenters.