Project Chanology: 'Anonymous' declares war on The Church of Scientology

[Rummy]

EDIT: I just gave this a massive bump(21/05), because I feel it's got relevant info. For the actual point of the matter, a 15 year old kid was served by Scientology, as quoted and outlined in my post here in this very thread.

 

 

Old Post(03/02)

This is something that came to my attention today, and I've ended up spending most of my day reading about Chanology and Scientology, and this effort against them. To give you a basic idea, a group that identifies as Anonymous and claims to be comprised of a wide range of internetters(in particular, not just script kiddie hackers) recently 'declared war' on The Church of Scientology for their actions in censoring and silencing people, with the trigger being identified as the forced removal of a Tom Cruise motivational video for Scientology from youtube, which some of you may have seen in the news this week. Some of their news coverage has called them a group of hackers or internet nerds, but I'll clarify that it seems to be a concept, and not an exclusive club of people. Anybody can fight the cause, and therefore become part of Anonymous. For more info on it all, I'll refer to the wikipedia page, and their own wiki engine based page.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanology

http://www.partyvan.info/index.php/Project_Chanology

 

They started with basic internet terrorism and arguably illegal attacks on The Church of Scientology(DDoSes, Black Faxes, Prank Calls etc) though apparently this was just the first step in a plan to garner some attention to their cause(and it's worked, they have recieved news coverage, and here I am too). They are moving away from that though, and do not condone it, and are now trying to take on The Church of Scientology in legal and orthodox means, such as protests, spreading the word and trying to get the wider public to inform themselves with knowledge about The Church's practises and policies. Of note is that this is not an attack on Scientology and the beliefs, but The Church of Scientology's unethical practises. Project Chanology is not intolerant of beliefs, and seems to be encouraging an alternative Scientology organisation called Free Zone. I'd like this thread to remain the same to as much an extent it can.

Anyhow, I think it's incredibly intriguing a prospect, so much so I was curious what other people thought and came here to make a topic! Have you ever heard of such a thing before? Do you think it could actually work? Are Anonymous just as bad as the CoS?

 

(P.S I understand some people who 'identified' as part of Anonymous (contradictory phrasing I realise), gave themselves and sites associated with them away. The ProjectChanology site above mentions that this defeats the point of Anonymous, so if you know of any associated sites, refrain from mentioning them)

[Shino]

Hahaha, Chanology! Damn that EbaumsWorld, occasionally they do the right thing.

[Brian Mcoy]

Mcoy thinks the Church of Scientology is a complete joke.

 

[Dyson]

A friend I vaguely know is attending one of these..silly fool.

[AshMat]

Hahaha, Chanology! Damn that EbaumsWorld, occasionally they do the right thing.

 

Aye, for once Ebaums has done some good.

[Supergrunch]

Anyone who takes annoymous seriously needs to go to 4chan /b/ sometime. It's just a joke, even if it does involve hacking Scientology wesites.

[Mundi]

The whole thing behind anonymous is just unbelievable.

A large group with no connections whatsoever, no ringleader or anyone that decides who to harass.

If you want to describe the power of the internet in one word, Anonymous is what you should say.

[Rummy]

So much for the whole no names thing then. I know about the origins of Anonymous(from numerous anonymous boards, some of which I visit when my internettery is running dry), this wasn't meant to be about that, it was meant to be about whether it could actually have an effect. Besides, the point is that this 'Anonymous' isn't just limited to imageboard posters, that they want to get support for it and get word out about The CoS, it's not about just hacking some Scientology sites anymore.

A friend I vaguely know is attending one of these..silly fool.

Lol, this is the sort of thing I was interested in. Why do you think he's silly for it?

[Mundi]

If it´s going to have some lasting effect is a good question.

I say this is gonna have some effect for those around this. Those that read about this for example.

 

Anonymous has grown from a name on image boards making rude jokes to a symbol on the internet

[Supergrunch]

It may well have an effect, but that doesn't stop Annoymous being a joke. Ask yourself why they do things, and the answer should be clear - for the lulz.

[Mundi]

But for people that are finding about this just recently found about it won´t look at it like that.

Just like with the habbo hotel raids they have some "justification" and for people that have no prior knowledge about anonymous, the justification will seem more believable

[Mokong]

The whole thing behind anonymous is just unbelievable.

A large group with no connections whatsoever, no ringleader or anyone that decides who to harass.

If you want to describe the power of the internet in one word, Anonymous is what you should say.

 

Kinda reminds me of the Laughing Man from Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex

[Sanchez]

This is way beyond anonymous now.

 

I'll be at the Edinburgh protest on the 10th with some friends.

 

At orlando yesterday there were 50 people protesting, at other larger scale protests 100 have signed up and there's still a week to go.

[AshMat]

Yeah i'm signing up to this, the Internet vs Scientology, they can gtfo our internets.

[Jamba]

First of all, the illegitimate stuff that has been happening is terrorism. Plain and simple.

 

I appreciate that they are trying to stop that but I would be suspicious of any organisation born out of such methods. I am glad that they are trying to do it though to protest against the unethical part of the religion rather than it's beliefs but the cynic in me can't help but think those are just words. Just seems too convenient with Scientology being such a popular subject.

 

Can someone tell me some of these unethical practices?

[AshMat]

http://www.lisamcpherson.org/

 

One of the most well know, there's links to a few other things on there too.

[McMad]

Anyone who takes annoymous seriously needs to go to 4chan /b/ sometime. It's just a joke, even if it does involve hacking Scientology wesites.

 

Those people you're referring to are not the real anonymous. They're just a bunch of idiots who found out about the site, did some reading on Encyclopedia Dramatica and now post the same old shitty stuff over and over.

 

"The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.

Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."

 

/b/ is merely just for jokes. Or at least it was. /i/ (not oekaki) is an accurate representation of the power of the real anon.

[AshMat]

/b/ Is dead now anyway, and /i/ has dissappeared, whichever chan is what that you linked me to McMad? Back when you were gonna learn the toolbox.

This is more than 4chan.

[McMad]

/b/ Is dead now anyway, and /i/ has dissappeared, whichever chan is what that you linked me to McMad? Back when you were gonna learn the toolbox.

This is more than 4chan.

 

I linked you to the ebaums insurgency wiki; the same place that rummy has linked in his original post. But because of all this scientology shit the 711chan /i/ is down. I actually haven't played around with the toolbox much in a while.

 

Anyway we're getting way off topic and I'm probably sounding like a complete cock.

[Jamba]

http://www.lisamcpherson.org/

 

One of the most well know, there's links to a few other things on there too.

 

Is this it? I mean, the death of a person is awful but I was expecting something more substantial. To be honest this sounds like the biggest hype and bandwagon fest in ages.

 

The way you guys are talking about it reminds me of E3...

[Sanchez]

lermanet.com

xenu.net

enturbulation.org

whyaretheydead.net

[AshMat]

That was fucking wierd, i was in the IRC, i decided i'd just use a totally fake name. Then after a while some guy starts asking "That your full name?" "And your last name is Chegwin?"

So i said it was a fake name, and fucked off.

[Jamba]

Ok some of that stuff is indeed awful, the kidnapping and stuff is espcially worrying. But in essence a lot of this stuff has happened due to Scientology praying on the stupid and weak willed. Religions and other organisations (not to mention governments) have been doing this for centuries and still are. For instance, my flat mate told me how the 2nd to last Pope was murdered because he wanted to give the Vatican's money to charity.

 

Praying on the weak is bad but then again I think that blame can be layed elsewhere for some of these situations happening. The hospital for instance in the case of Lisa McPherson.

 

It all seems very black and white but I don't think that much of what is on these websites is imparshally reported and it is also very easy to omitt facts as well as colour them. I'm not going to make a judgement yet, I will view this subject from a distance with an amount of suspicion but to be frank there are many other issues that I think are worth my time.

[Twozzok]

Yeah because vitamins and prayer or whatever the fuck are gonna cure you from mental disorders.

[Shino]

Here's the Orlando protest.

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfKQ75F0XsA

 

Here's some more info on its practices.

 

http://theunfunnytruth.ytmnd.com/