Scientology Media Blitz to Counter Critics Seems Counter-Productive
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The Church of Scientology is in the midst of a multi-million dollar media campaign that includes running ads on news sites, satellite dish networks, 37 cable stations, and even Wired.com — a blitz that seems to have not so much won new friends or influenced people as stir up more animosity towards the group many consider nothing more than a greedy cult.
A typical video: “You are not your name. You are not your job. [...] You are not your fears. You are hope. [...] You are a spirit that will never die. [...] Scientology. Know yourself. Know life.”
A typical reaction: “Just saw a commercial for scientology. seriously? it claimed truth. i pray that nobody buys into that lie,” wrote HannaSheeps on Monday via Twitter.
That reception is to be expected given the internet and Scientology are still fighting what might be the net’s longest running flame war, dating back to the early days of alt.religion.scientology news group. That bitter fight led to lawsuits, raids by the feds and criminal prosecutions of church critics. The criticism of the church has been the same for more than 15 years — that it’s a cult which charges believers thousands of dollars for trainings and uses strong-arm tactics to keep members and critics in line. The church’s line hasn’t changed either — we are misunderstood and we will use the law to silence critics.
The Hatfields to the church’s McCoys are itself a cultish group of loosely-organized hackers known as Anonymous, which “declared war” in January 2008 after the secretive religious group tried to suppress a creepy Tom Cruise video produced for Scientology members. After that incident the leaderless group organized online attacks, leaks of embarrassing internal church doctrine documents and protests outside of Scientology buildings around the country.
A month ago a teen Anonymous member pleaded guilty in federal court to a computer hacking charge for his role in distributed denial-of-service attack that last year shuttered Church of Scientology websites. Two weeks ago Wikipedia banned the church from editing any articles.
Mostly, media just stay away from the story or generally cast the organization in a bad light. Enter public relations and a checkbook. In what Church of Scientology spokesman Ingo Lehmann told wired.com was a reaction at least in part to the Anonymous campaigns, the church began a campaign of TV commercials and Flash ads on May 17 designed to lure eyeballs to scientology.org, where there are hundreds of videos and testimonials (though they don’t say really much about the Church’s teachings). It plans to keep running ads through the end of the year. Interested viewers can go see the ads for themselves at http://thescientologyvideo.blogspot.com.
Disconnect seems to play a big part in all of this: Lehmann sent out the Twitter screenshot in this article along with a press release about the campaign. He described the Tweeters as surprised. A better description might be that every Tweet in the screenshot was either offended or cynical.
Our own experience was similar. Readers in Belgium and the UK tweeted us about scientology ads they saw on Wired.com last week and we responded that we had sold no ads to the church.
On Wednesday, Condé Nast Executive Director Josh Stinchcomb clarified that some Wired.com ads are sold through Google Adsense. The company does not comment on what advertisers appear on the site through that program, though this was apparently the source of the Scientology ads on Wired.com. Wired.com reserves the right to refuse to serve ads from Google Adsense buyers based on reader feedback, among other things.
“We do not publicly comment on which advertisers we allow or disallow, but do appreciate the comments from our readers and have reacted accordingly,” Stinchcomb said in a statement.
The money flowing from Scientology into the economy may turn out to be the most productive thing to ever emerge from 4Chan, the infamous online image sharing site where internet memes like Lolcats are born and Anonymous members hang out while contemplating new, online mischief. Anonymous members who protest Scientology say they should not be confused with the bored denizens of image boards, and that their crusade against Scientology is born out of principles and concern for people they say the Church has brainwashed. The most recent noises target the Church’s upper echelon, Sea Org, which members pledge to join for a billion years.
Not surprisingly, Lehmann disagrees about their motives.
“Some people just don’t have anything better to do,” Lehmann said. “We have tried to communicate, but they have fun making noise and intimidating people.”
Screenshot: Courtesy Scientology.org
See Also:
- Wired 3.12: alt.scientology.war
- Wikipedia Bans Church of Scientology
- ‘Anonymous’ Member Pleads Guilty To Scientology Web Attacks
- War Breaks Out Between Hackers and Scientology — There Can Be Only
- Scientology Shares Secrets on YouTube … Sort Of
- Google Yanks Anti-Church Sites
Source: Ryan Singel
