How Scientology changed the internet
Dave Lee ("BBC News," July 16, 2013)
What do Wikipedia, Wikileaks, Anonymous and copyright law have in common?
The answer is they have all been influenced by the Church of Scientology
International (CSI), as it took on ex-members and critics who took their
protests on to the internet. As the Church successfully removes another
website,
just how big an influence has Scientology had on the internet we all use?
Last month digital rights activists at the influential Electronic Frontiers
Foundation (EFF) placed the Church of Scientology into their hall of shame
over what it says were repeated acts against internet freedoms.
It was just the latest twist in the Church's long-running feud with
"negative" Scientology content online, one that has lasted almost two decades.
Back in May 1994, at a time when most major organisations were yet to
figure out how exactly to deal with the relatively unknown power of the
internet, the Church's Elaine Siegel had a few ideas, outlined in a leaked
email to
"all Scientologists on the internet".
Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
They're kind of innovators in finding ways to censor the internet”
Dr Martin Poulter
University of Bristol
"I would like to ask your assistance in getting each one of you to post
positive messages on the internet (at least once a week, more if you like),
about Scientology," she wrote.
"If you imagine 40-50 Scientologists posting on the internet every few
days, we'll just run the SP's [ex-members] right off the system.
"It will be quite simple, actually."
Or perhaps not.
'Censorship innovators'
Unsurprisingly, the Church of today is keen to distance itself from Ms
Siegel's email.
"It is ancient history in terms of internet development," spokeswoman Karin
Pouw told the BBC in a series of emails about the Church's relationship
with the internet.
"The email in no way reflects or represents the Church's current
relationships with IT professionals or our use of the internet to provide
information about Scientology to anyone who seeks it."
She's right - the Church has moved on, instead seeking new ways to have
"negative" content removed from the web.
"They're kind of innovators in finding ways to censor the internet," said
Dr Martin Poulter from the University of Bristol.
Dr Poulter is a lead trainer for Wikimedia UK, the British arm of the
non-profit organisation that looks after Wikipedia, and often edits its
Scientology pages - something the Church is no longer able to do.
"Scientology was the first organisation to be officially banned from
Wikipedia," he says, referring to the landmark decision in 2009.
"There were several different accounts making very similar contributions
and advancing pro-Scientology lines, or deleting anti-Scientology stuff."
Dr Poulter's first experience with the Church's actions online came in the
early 90s when he was browsing a newsgroup called alt.religion.scientology,
a place where critics and ex-members were posting information on the
Church.
"The reaction from the Church of Scientology was that it went really
berserk," recalls Dr Poulter.
With the help of local authorities, houses belonging to newsgroup users
across the US were raided, with computer equipment being seized for weeks on
end.
"The days of the internet as a cosy, private, intellectual cocktail party
are over," technology magazine Wired prophetically declared in 1995.
'Encourage tolerance'
Scientology officials remember those early days with a slightly different
perspective.
"The Church at that time had been a pioneer in religious website
development," said Ms Pouw, but she admitted to the BBC that there had been
concern
about hate speech.
So much so, the Church took internet service providers such as Netcom to
court over users who were posting copyrighted works online in order to attack
Scientology.
Netcom retaliated, saying it could not be expected to screen everything its
users were posting - a defence now frequently utilised by large sites like
YouTube.
That row was one of several which led to the creation of the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a US law that gives copyright holders the
power
to ask for the removal of content to which they own the rights.
The DMCA is now widely used by the entertainment industry to have content
removed from the internet.
For the Church, it was a tool that allowed them to go after ex-members and
others who had posted "secret scriptures" online.
One such site, Operation Clambake, was a particular thorn. Set up by
Andreas Heldal-Lund, the site not only hosted previously private Scientology
documents but large amounts of criticism of the Church too. Because it had
been
set up in Norway, Xenu.net was beyond the DMCA's reach.
Google 'meeting'
So the Church did the next best thing: it made a DMCA request to Google for
the site to be wiped from search results. Google complied, sparking strong
criticism.
Faced with the backlash, Google came to what founder Sergey Brin would
later describe as the "right compromise", removing the listings, but replacing
them with links to another website - chillingeffects.org - which lists the
details of DMCA requests.
Meanwhile, anti-Scientologists linked to Xenu.net from their own sites,
thus pushing it up Google's rankings until it appeared ahead of the Church's
official site.
Former high-ranking Scientologist Geir Isene, who left the Church in 2009,
told the BBC the Church was so concerned about this that it put pressure on
Mr Brin at a conference in the hope he would alter search results to
down-rank, or remove, anti-Scientology material.
The Church denies any discussions took place, while Google told the BBC it
had no record of a meeting - but added that Mr Brin and other Google bosses
would often meet webmasters and discuss matters relating to search at
industry events.
The company strongly denies any suggestion it would have considered
changing its search algorithms.
Mr Isene said his IT expertise was used by the Church to get under the skin
of Mr Heldal-Lund, by posing online as a girl asking for advice after
being brutalised by Jehovah's Witnesses.
Years later, when the Church asked Mr Isene how to combat their "Google
problem" he told officials they could never pressure the company into change.
"They thought that was the most stupid thing Google could think - because
obviously Scientology was going to save the world and Google was just a
simple search engine."
When asked about the meeting, the Church of Scientology played down Mr
Isene's contribution.
"He has joined a small group of former Scientologists who are trying to
generate media stories about their former faith through exaggerated claims of
their own importance," spokeswoman Ms Pouw said.
"He was one of many IT professionals we consulted at the time. Nothing
more."
As the years progressed, Scientology's run-ins with the internet community
would come thick and fast - mostly notably from the likes of Wikileaks,
which in 2008 was still in "beta". It posted more scriptures, provoking the
first significant legal challenge to the site's owner, Julian Assange. He
ignored the Church's threat.
Superbowl stats
Today, the Church takes pride in its presence on social media and says it
works with Google "almost daily" on web ad campaigns.
"The teamwork has resulted in exciting technology and user experience
milestones like our rich media YouTube channel as well as the YouTube homepage
interactive experience seen by 61,771,958 people in a single day in February
of this year."
But that impressive traffic day, it must be noted, was largely thanks to a
Superbowl advertisement costing several millions of dollars.
So while it may have embraced the internet for its own purposes,
organisations like the Church of Scientology still face the internet's
disregard for
secrecy as a constant threat.
According to some measures, the Church is suffering from declining
membership. Many who leave the Church are now more able to speak out -
particularly with the help of blogs and social media, a threat that even the
most
intensive use of copyright laws struggles to touch.
"Founder L Ron Hubbard told them how to do everything in life," reflects Dr
Poulter from Wikipedia.
"But he didn't leave any instructions on how to handle the internet."
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