Church of Scientology vs Anonymous

For almost a year now, a large internet group known as “Anonymous” has been going into the streets and protesting the infamous organization “Church of Scientology”. Below are some clear ups and stories as to what they are and who they are.

Anonymous

Anonymous has been known as a large group of mischievous “hackers on steroids”, as FOX has interpreted it. They were hacking myspace accounts and rading childrens’ video games. But how did they go from a bunch of internet pranksters to a protesting group? What made a group of hackers leave their rooms and protest in real life?

To answer this question, we will need to go back.

July, 2006:

Anonymous invades Habbo Hotel, an online game massively used by children. Anonymous blocked the pool’s entrance repeating “pool is closed due to aids”. All their characters had the same characteristics: A black suit, an afro and they were all African Americans.

But what was the cause for invading a childrens’ game? The answer is simple:

“We did it for lulz”, says Anonymous.

You can’t expect anything else from a typical “internet bad guy”. It is sort of like everyone used to prank call in their childhood (some still do )

July, 2007:

FOX does a news report on Anonymous. In here, Anonymous is described as “hackers on steroids who are invading myspace accounts and childrens’ video games”. And although this was all in fact true, as any media would do, FOX obviously overdid it, making Anonymous almost seem like “cyber-terrorists”, while in fact they are no more than pranksters.

What was Anonymous side of the story? Pretty much the same as always. They said that they did it “For LULZ”, but also cleared up the fact that they are not in fact a club that meets underground in secrecy, they are just everyday people who decide to make the internet users angry every once in a whole.

January-February 2008: Church of Scientology removes a leaked video on the internet from Youtube, where Tom Cruise describes how he absolutely loves being a scientologist. Anonymous did not like this behavior, and seeing this as a “LULZ”(A corruption of LOL) goldmine, decided it would be a great idea to raid them.

The first 3 videos posted were from this channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Church0fScientology

These videos have been quickly found and posted all over internet. Most of the all-time internet users are on good terms with anonymous, and this decided to spread these videos. The target was achieved, all Anonymous knew what they had to do. Anonymous manipulated Google searches so that whenever you search up “dangerous cult” scientology’s main website comes up as the first result.

February 10th, 2008: As it is no surprise by now, I am entirely on the side of Anonymous. February 10th was the first raid. Everybody was to wear masks, and everyone has. V for Vendetta masks were preferable, as it was one of the “memes”(a meme is a picture, character that is known to everyone and is often used). But plenty of different masks were worn also. The first protest had plenty of Anonymous all around the world. London and Winnipeg should be mentioned, as London was the longest one and Winnipeg was the coldest.

The protests go on to this day

Church of Scientology

Church of Scientology is a controversial organization that has been associated with many deaths, lawsuits and critics. Formed in December of 1953 by L Ron Hubbard, the church was blooming until 1967 when the IRS stripped all US-based Scientology entities of their tax exemption, declaring Scientology’s activities were commercial and operated for the benefit of Hubbard. The Church has been suing and losing for 26 years to regain it’s tax-exempt status as a religion, untill in 1993, the church gained it back but paid the IRS $12.5 Million Dollars (Interesting how a non-profit organization has that kind of money)

The church has received plenty of criticism. Multiple critics such as Paulette Cooper(google her name for interesting stories), and it is a massive target for entertainment (Multiple shows have been mocking scientology).

The main reason scientology is constantly mocked, is most likely the believes. To most of people, the idea of alien souls living inside a human body thus causing us to do bad things just seems plain out bogus. Also, the fact that the religion is so new, makes it seem like something bogus.

In my opinion, a religion without a long history of belief, isn’t a religion. A Man cannot come out of nowhere and pronounce himself as the one that will tell you the truth. Especially if the man used to be a science fiction writer (which L Ron Hubbard was)

This is all on the Church of Scientology and Anonymous. Pick your favourites, take your sides.

Cheers!