Scientology Fights Back
Originally published at Kyle Boddy dot com. You can comment here or there.
As many of you know, the Church of Scientology has been 'under attack' for the past few months by members of a group called 'Anonymous.' Anonymous is just a bunch of people on a completely uncensored image board who occasionally get together and perform 'raids' on various businesses or organizations. Examples would include calling Gamestop repeatedly and asking for Battletoads, or logging into a popular UK avatar site and getting banned for racism.
Anonymous has no leader. It's a critical mass of the dregs of the Internet where people post the most inane and ridiculous things. They are responsible for lolcats/cat macros and almost every popular meme you've seen on the Internet. They get the name Anonymous because there is no registration on the site, and everyone is forced to post with that name. Somehow these unorganized and nameless masses actually get together to do things, and the latest raids on Scientology are evidence of it.
Members of 4chan's /b/ have been performing various disruptive actions against CoS, ranging from calling in death threats, staging peaceful protests, playing Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' at full blast (yes, they invented the Rickroll meme as well) over the phones, and obtaining stolen documents from the CoS about their ridiculous doctrines on how to 'move up' in the organization.
Interestingly enough, the CoS has fought back by publishing various videos on YouTube and getting advertising to spread the 'good word' about Scientology and bring the 'truth' to light. Obviously anyone reading this blog knows that Scientology is a crock of shit, invented by a guy who wrote B-list scifi novels and possibly performed questionable scientific experiments (including abortions) on family members. However, the CoS holds a ton of power, made so by their large coffers built from using extortionist tactics on their members and donations from Hollywood celebrities. They never had much of an Internet presence, but it would seem that these attacks and attempts to bring their injustices to light has finally motivated them to put out their own propaganda on YouTube, Google Video, and various other sites.
A quick search of YouTube will yield some interesting videos. Here are but a few:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKs-u0q467U&feature=dir - What Scientologists Say About Scientology
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQ - Message to Scientology (from a random Anonymous member - seen as the first strike by Anonymous)
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrkchXCzY70 - Call to Action (explanation of Anonymous and CoS)
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-063clxiB8I - Code of Conduct (another Anonymous video detailing the code of conduct in protests)
It's always fun to watch how /b/ shapes the Internet*, but this time, it might actually be serious business.
* /b/ has been the source and inspiration of at least two public shootings and possibly one major criminal case where GPS information was revealed on /b/, given to police, and a body linked to a murder was found. The Internet is serious business.