Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology

El Reg writes "Showing a new-found resolve to crack down on self-serving edits, Wikipedia has banned contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology. According to Wikipedia administrators, this marks the first time such a high-profile organization has been banished for allegedly pushing its own agenda on the 'free encyclopedia anyone can edit.'"

Comments

About Fucking Time

[Anonymous Coward]

The Church of Scientology has a long history of censorship and general Internet fuckery.

http://www.factnet.org/Scientology/censorware.html

Two things:

1. Wikipedia should never lift the ban.
2. Jimbo should watch his back; Scientology *DOES NOT* play nice when it doesn't get what it wants.

Re:About Fucking Time

[dgcaste]

No it doesn't.

My brother in law is a practicing Scientologist, and he works at the "Church" in San Diego.

He's explained to me time and time again that the church's position is "if you're not with us, you're against us", and that they defend their territory without impunity. Even perceived threats are great game.

When I ask him, "how can you trust an institution that is so legally violent? if it wanted to be judged by its merits, it shouldn't be litigating the hell out of everyone that stands in its way!", he responds "our opponents deserve litigation because they intend to suppress us". It is quite frustrating to have these conversations with him.

Even more interestingly is that inter-church issues are not taken to court, in fact, to take an internal quarrel to court is grounds from a church ban. They have their own "ethics committees" that see such cases, but they generally follow their own laws and not those of the locale they're in.

So I asked him, "if it's a matter of a constitutional issue, why wouldn't you take it up to the Supreme Court?" and his reply is "we don't trust or expect the legal system to understand how we do things."

I'm quite sure he didn't see the double standard in his views - litigation is good, when it's convenient for the church to litigate.

Tor already mostly blocked

[davidwr]

TOR exit nodes are already notoriously difficult to edit from:
*You can't edit anonymously.
*If you have a new-ish account that is barely old enough to let you edit semi-protected articles, your account is treated as if it was new when you are connected via TOR.

Operation Clambake

[bryan1945]

For more really really fun and interesting info, go to Operation Clambake. Before you freak about the URL, the URL is real, and so is the guy (Andreas Heldal-Lund, who runs this out of Norway, which is why Scientology has not gotten any legal traction against him yet). I recommend a read, for what little that's worth.

http://www.xenu.net/

Re:nice

[Brian Gordon]

To be fair, Conservapedia is fundamentalist, not just conservative.

Re:nice

[Chris Daniel]

when the conservatives felt that Wikipedia had too much of a liberal bias

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias." --Stephen Colbert

Re:Fine by me

[Taxman415a]

As much as I despise Scientology, I don't see why their cult should be singled out for direct criticisms in the opening paragraphs of the article, (e.g "cult that financially defrauds and abuses its members"). While this may be true, other cults (oh ok "religions", whats the difference) that do the same thing are being described in completely different way, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints This is supposed to be an encyclopedia article, not a newspaper editorial so I think the tone and content of the opening 4 paragraphs I think do need some changes. I am afraid to make them though cause I might get banned from the site.

The reason they are singled out for that type of description is there is an enormous amount of evidence to support the description. Church leaders have lied cheated and stolen to support their agenda. The organization has a longstanding harrassment policy against it's detractors. They are extremely good at abusing the legal system to their ends and mostly getting away with it. Other groups most certainly do not come anywhere near the level of abuse that the COS does. Besides that, I don't see the description you refer to in an article right now.

Re:freedom of expression

[Antique Geekmeister]

And it takes several rounds from a shotgun, three to the chest, one to the head. Take a look at the death of Mary Florence Barnett, the mother of David Miscavige, the current head of Scientology. (http://www.badcult.info/watd/flo_barnett/coroner.html) Suicide? With multiple shotgun rounds? And _two_ suicide notes? While the suicide of a cancer patient can be understandable, this does seem.... beyond the usual efforts of a cancer ridden person, threatening their church with lawsuits.

Re:Fine by me

[Actually, I do RTFA]

As much as I despise Scientology, I don't see why their cult should be singled out... other cults (oh ok "religions", whats the difference) that do the same thing are being described in completely different way

Well, Scientology (and other cults) do things I've never heard of religions doing (since the Middle Ages):

1. Restrict who is allowed to have access to holy texts so they can make enlightenment contingent on payment
2. Record confessions/counciling sessions to blackmail members.
3. The use of hypnosis and other techniquies aimed at the un/subconcious.
4. Claims a scientific validity (and basis... even so far as claiming to be based on earlier, real, scientists work)
5. An attempt to vilify, ostrecize, and isolate people who leave.

6. Also, Scientology seems to ignore many things real religions do: organize food drives and other charitable events, provide aid to members in need (emotional or economic), and other beneficent acts.

Re:So what?

[niney]

Yes, they're using the extension TorBlock to do this.

Re:So what?

[chihowa]

Seriously, I think you fooled the mods here too. Tor exit nodes are just computers running Tor that have been set up to also be an exit node. There are hundreds of nodes and they are run by volunteers, not by the Tor project. You can get a list of the exit nodes (here, for example), but Tor Hyams has nothing to do with them.