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CoS Bigwig Likens Wikipedia Ban to Nazis' Yellow Star Decree
We mentioned on Thursday that Wikipedia has banned edits originating from certain IP addresses belonging to the Church of Scientology; reader newtley writes now that Scientology leader (CEO and Chairman of the Board of the linked, but legally separate, Religious Technology Center) David Miscavige calls the ban "a 'despicable hate crime,' and asks, 'What's next, will Scientologists have to wear yellow, six-pointed stars on our clothing?' During World War II, Hitler forced Jewish men, women and children to wear a a yellow cloth star bearing the word Jude to brand them in the streets of Europe, and in the Nazi death camps."
So when does he think that the Wikipedia stormtroopers will march up to the scientology homes and round them all up to labour camps that have a Work is Freedom banner at the front gate? Honestly, it's the first time I've ever seen a conversation Godwin itself from the original argument. Reduction Nazium indeed.
The CO$ got banned because they systematically abused the PRIVILEGE (not a right) to do edits on Wikipedia because they were doing so to silence criticism.
If they'd made edits to correct factual errors instead of their own (since they have already violated Godwin's Law) NAZI like internet tactics this never would have happened.
Now I wish Wikipedia would start banning other corporate abusers, such as Sony, who also notoriously edits out any criticism of them and their ethics. Go look at all the edits on the Star Wars Galaxies article and SOE liar in chief John "Smed" Smedley.
Corporatism != Free Market
Just because you hate what happened doesn't make it a hate crime.
Absolutely. Talk about lacking a sense of proportion - any member of any 'banned IP' group - be they MPAAers looking for torrenters or the Scientologists - can just nip round to the local cyber café or wifi hotspot. Not an option for the people Hitler and his cronies persecuted and slaughtered.
I'm all for Scientologists wearing something we can easily identify them by, so we can avoid their ignorance.
Comparing your 'religion' to Judaism is ridiculous. I won't go into detail as to why I think so, because I think all religions are absurd, but it's like comparing pop tarts to a t-bone steak. One company, running a website, decided to block all IPs linked to Scientology. You are not being 'persecuted'. No death marches, no concentration camps, no shootings in the street. But we can all hope for that! Just kidding.
And did he just godwin himself?
The Reg article really oversimplified the Wikipedia ArbCom ruling, making it sound more one-sided than it was. If you actually read it, you'll see that it recognizes both pro- and anti-Scientologists as troublemakers, and includes sanctions for some hardcore Scientology critics as well.
This is actually a relief to me, as anti-Scientologists can get as wacked out as the Scientologists themselves. Wikipedia ArbCom has made some bone-headed decisions in the past; it's good that they were level-headed in this case.
No kidding. It isn't like Jimmy Wales is sending out his WikiGestapoForces to round them up and send them to Auschwitz if they run down to corner espresso bar and fire up their wifi.
Besides, Wikipedia is private non-profit organization. It's their servers, it's their site, and they are fully within their rights to say who is and who is not welcome to use them. It's no different when the Church of Scientology comes knocking on your door passing out their pamphlets and you slam the door in their face and tell them to get lost. Private property is private property.
My blog
Persecuted?
From Webster's dictionary:
" to cause to suffer because of belief"
I'm not sure how lack of Wikipedia access is comparable to being thrown in a death camp, but perhaps someone with more perspective can tell me.
The analogy is horribly flawed: The stars identified Jews so they would be discriminated against by other people as well as by the state (e.g. employers, benches, certain events, buildings etc.)
Filtering IPs from the CoS prevents them from contributing or skewing an already established work: it doesn't attach an indelible mark with which others can identify them with (and use against them) and it doesn't promote wide-spread "We hate you" feelings - it's just saying "We don't want your 'contributions'"
1) It's clear you are a COS member
2) I can go back 15 generations in my family tree because the Nazi's had a habit of being thorough and making sure people were in now way "jewish", even if they were christian for 10 generations, they had to be christian for at least 15. I have a hard time believing they would hire anyone jewish as a soldier or a member of the police.
"There is nothing wrong with his analogy" says a user with the name BadAnalogyGuy.
Too perfect.
Your argument is hilarious. What does the existence of Jews willing to slaughter other Jews have to do with anything--or even defend the analogy!
Your deflection of the errant analogy with some sort of pointless note of some Jews working for Nazis during the Holocaust is borderline antisemitic in my book.
Grow up. They can't edit an online encyclopedia! How do you compare that with stripping an innocent of their right to live?
My work here is dung.
The Church of Scientology can access Wikipedia just fine, they just can't edit it. So this is basically analogous to having your story submits summarily rejected by a newspaper because you've submitted so much crap in the past.
And no, that's not really equivalent to being sent to a death camp, but then again, scientologists aren't exactly known for their sanity or truthfulness, that being one of the reasons why they're being banned.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
It's not even that bad is it? They still have access, they just can't edit... from IP addresses belonging to CoS... from home IPs is fine.
So yes, obviously Mr Miscavige is being repellantly disingenuous here.
If any block of IPs - regardless of who owns it - is routinely responsible for sabotaging the encyclopedia then it seems appropriate that the admins should ban that block of IPs.
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
Hell, if this analogy works then we should all disable our Spam filters and cower in shame for our prejudice, after all, these guys believe in us seeing the best Pr0n on the internet as well as giving us the opportunity to enhance our manhoods.
www.meneguzzi.eu/felipe
There is a big difference between the actions taken by Wikipedia and the holocaust.
There is nothing stopping the Scientologists from using their own channels. They are free to use whatever channel they like.
It's more like a newspaper - the editor can chose to not publish an article on whatever grounds he like.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
So, I actually clicked through to RTFA, and was stunned by the article. I'm pretty sure it's a fake. Just to quote it - "There is so much nonsense on the internet about Scientology, all of which was written by anti-religion extremists in the employ of the Psychiatric-Pharmaceutical industry. Many are also being paid by certain depraved, degenerate factions within the German government. You can't believe any of it. If these scumbags had their way, all children would be psych-drugged into oblivion, most eventually becoming high school gunmen; vicious de-programmers would constantly be leaping out from shadowy corners; there would be all-night electroshock parlors on the high street of every village, town and city; and anyone who tried to live an ethical life would quickly receive an icepick lobotomy."
That scans more like Burroughs than anything else. Kind of a satirical send-up of the scientologists, you know? If it *is* real, I think this guy should write more press releases.
So the church of Scientology actually recognises the Holocaust now? Ah well :)
So, it's alright for the CoS to forbid their followers from viewing certain websites but not alright for others to ban CoS from editing their sites? Hmm - somewhere in there I think there's a double standard (although I admit that the referenced article is rather unlikely to be unbiased, as is the wiki on the topic)
-- Intelligence is soluble in alcohol
I hate seeing this argument pop up again and again. Wikipedia has a lot of de facto power. We gave them this power by using the service and promoting it among our acquaintances. We didn't give Jimmy Wales this power so that he could use it to advance a personal agenda of changing social perceptions or silencing arbitrary voices. There's a certain amount of accountability here.
But the decision to ban Scientology's IP's was perfectly in line with a reasonable prior policy. That's what makes this is OK, not the fact that Wikipedia is private property.
There is no obligation to religion/superstition by private groups. It is time anti-religionists went on the offensive to assert ourselves (legally) against superstition.
We don't have to give religionists anything we are not obliged to in law, and we do NOT owe respect to superstition. Scientology in my opinion is a blatant con game, and hence worthy of (legal) denial of support. Supporters should be exposed so those of us who oppose Scientology can (legally) choose the manner of our interaction with them.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Wait, did you just impy that killing kittens is worse than killing people?!?