Anonymous declares war on Scientology

[Doppleganger]

It's pretty cool that the /b/-tards are actually stepping out to resist, especially given their reputation. But then again a lot turned out for the hilarious "International campaign to spoil the next Harry Potter book". So long as anything can be termed "lolworthy" folks with a lot of time on their hands will do it.

[deoxys]

Yes. "We" did do something. Videos soon.

[Lady Kuno]

Huge turnouts everywhere. From what I read it only failed in like Viena or something because they forgot their protest permit. Even the one man protesting in Japan had a badass story about it.

Makes me want to go in the future but who knows.

[Talon87]

It is the hour 11:50pm, but where are the videos? I was promised videos! I don't see any videos? Why? Why? Why?

[Lady Kuno]

I have alot of vids around. Here's my favorite one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHpjcZNM8_k

[Talon87]

It seems like a lot of people are actually angry with the Londoners in that video for not protesting Scientology enough and instead just doing public demonstrations of silly Internet memes.

*shrug* It's still impressive that they all showed up. When I hear the number "100s" online, it sounds small, but that's because we're used to living in such a large world. Seeing those "100s" of people reminds me just how many people that is, and how there probably aren't even 100 $cientologists on any given business day in the Scientology HQ in London.

[Lady Kuno]

It was mostly peaceful/normal stuff. Whenever people started singing bell-air or random stuff they were told to stop and stay on target. It wasn't a full time meme-fest.

[Lunar Delta]

Originally Posted by Holy Emperor

I have alot of vids around. Here's my favorite one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHpjcZNM8_k

Haha! They're all wearing Guy Fawkes masks! That absolutely made my day.

[deoxys]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpbbKOBEV6k

More to come, I promise.

Anyone considering joining the next raid (March 15, L. Ron's Birthday), or just considering fighting Scientology in general, should go to http://www.enturbulation.org

[Talon87]

That is pretty crazy that there is a chapter in Cincinnati.

Who the hell was doing the camerawork: the Blair Witch? :P

And for our final comment ... did you invite any of your Burger King friends?

[SulcataIxlude]

Originally Posted by Holy Emperor

I have alot of vids around. Here's my favorite one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHpjcZNM8_k

During the last few seconds of that video one of the guys in the crowd looked like he was wearing a peci (Indonesian muslim hat.)

[Doppleganger]

Originally Posted by VGM Hiero

(March 15, L. Ron's Birthday)

Old Mother Hubbard was born on the Ides? How...deliciously ironic. :P

[deoxys]

I was doing the camera work. My hands were numb from the -5 wind chill and it hurt like hell, sorry >_>

Any of my burger king friends? What? No. And if you're asking if I dressed up as the king...no...although I was thinking about wearing the king mask...but masks are illegal during protests...so no.

and you should watch this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Z9oAJmA-o

And I'm in it but I won't say where :P

[Doppleganger]

Wait, if masks are illegal, why were people wearing Guy Fawkes masks?

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Wait, if masks are illegal, why were people wearing Guy Fawkes masks?

London != Cincinnati

[Muyotwo]

Originally Posted by VGM Hiero

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Z9oAJmA-o
And I'm in it but I won't say where :P

Rules 1 and 2. Seriously >>

[deoxys]

lol wut? I didn't make that video and I did not break either rule >>

I am aware that quite a few people broke the rules at the protest...but I was not one of them. I stuck strictly to to them...

[Muyotwo]

Didn't figure it was, but the guy spouting off website names in the vid needs a refresher course. I'm aware that Scientology already has a pretty good, if not perfect, idea of where the anons are coming from, but I'm a man of principle.

[Lady Kuno]

Damn eBaums and their crazy shenanagins.

[deoxys]

There's currently a gag running between anon that many of them are from eBaums, as a man named "Paul fetch" on youtube has "declared war" with anonymous because he believes they are nazis. so he "found their hideout" and planned to expose anonymous secrets. Turns out his big secret was that he discovered that anonymous hides out on ebaums.

then there was a collective lulzfest.

Yes, some anonymous, mostly newfags, hang out on ebaums...but uh, yeah, most don't >>

Many, also a lot of newfags, gather at enturbulation.org.

[Lady Kuno]

Dude, rules 1 and 2.

[deoxys]

But I.... fuck it, never mind.

rule 34 on kuno.

[Doppleganger]

dami -

1. You didn't comment on the protests, so I'm getting that your silence means you approve of them?

2. True, the vast majority of /b/-tards are script kiddies with only a working knowledge of the internet. However, don't stereotype the loud and obnoxious ones as the whole of /b/. Talon does the same stereotyping /b/ as representative of almost all Yotsuba, when rather /b/ is like the largest city (say, Manhattan) in an online confederation of city-states. As the biggest city it has the most influence, but that's not to say it defines the entire confederation. During the International Embassy hacking incident, which you must have heard of, "real" hackers/crackers appeared on /b/ to help the moronic idiots remove traces so they wouldn't get vanned by government IP trackers. I don't know the actual extent of this help, but suffice to say there are real programmers lurking in /b/ even if they don't exist in the other boards.

3. "Ends justify the means"? A lot of people have acknowledged the $cientology attacks are bored /b/-tards deciding to flex their biceps (I see it as such as well), but we know Scientology to be violent and dangerous so who is to condemn the /b/-tard's fun? It's for a good cause even if for the wrong reason, and given the hive mind effect of the image-board system, if the /b/-tards are tongue-in-cheek for long enough they'll internalize what they're pretending to advocate and it'll become genuine protests over rights. Such was the case of Hal Turner, whose life was ruined by /b/-tards but now is maliciously attacked because of his beliefs and not just to be funny and trollish in the real world. The news media has a romance with the controversy of $cientology, and they've also got a huge fetish for the internet and popular youth culture as well, so it's a marriage of interest - we're striking back at $cientology at a weak point, since the rich few of that organization can't hurt what they can't see and can't infiltrate a legion of like-minded pranksters.

4. One final thing...

>>Anonymous has gone and declared themselves self-anointed censors of the internet and declared that they have the right to decide what material people can access on the internet. Anonymous claims to oppose $cientology and their methods but then goes around and uses the same tactics $cientology uses to silence critics.

Anonymous isn't a censor, they're trying to let all information be accessed freely on the internet. Hence why a "Chanology" article exists on both ED and Wikipedia and most of their antics are non-lethal methods simply to cause chaos/disruption. Appropriate that they wear the Guy Fawkes masks given that...

Some of the antics of /b/-tards can be nightmarish, though. I think of Tom Green when I say this.

[deoxys]

Dopple--- I couldn't agree more. It isn't censorship. Anon is simply trying to expose scientology for what it truly is.

[Doppleganger]

1. Cool.

2. I have a problem with that. I identify as Anonymous (or rather, an email address) on /a/, which is a neighbour of /b/ but otherwise has nothing to do with the chaos that people commonly associate with Yotsuba. It's unfair that I'm stereotyped as a /b/-tard when I have nothing to do with it; by extension, you could call anyone on the iichan system or wakaba as responsible for these incidents because they are on an anonymous image-board as well. This kind of case is no different from pigeon-holing Ron Pau as a corrupt religious zealot simply because other Republicans are more famous, loud and obnoxious about their beliefs and actions. It's not my fault (or our fault rather) that /b/ is filled with underaged b& and a whole lot of other FYAD rejects. I'd expect the people who know better to differentiate between "groups" a bit more.

3. Excellent point. But as I see it (in economic terms), the ultimate goal of this campaign would be maximizing social welfare - is the world better off without Scientology? If yes, and the degree of damage Scientology inflicts upon the world is great, the luckless individuals who were accidentally targeted by the indiscriminate /b/-tards are unforunate casualties for the greater good. This is a rather callous view, espeicially since most folks would look at this and say, "well, the damage was done needlessly" but it was an accident of fate caused by a spur to action, it couldn't have been predicted nor prevented. Take bombing Hiroshima and then learning about the atomic fallout caused by the explosion; statistically that was a random event (random in the sense of we didn't know it would have happened) and an unfortunate consequence of an action, but the overall goal - ending the war as quickly and painlessly as possible - was still achieved. What Anonymous is doing here isn't on the level of killing people, just causing disruption, so that analogy might be a tad too extreme, but I think you get the idea.

(Keep in mind this is all spur of the moment DA defense).

4. Your best point thus far (quite ironic indeed!). I doubt censorship in that manner was in Anonymous' expectations, though, especially when a lot of their efforts are to educate people about Scientology beliefs (legitimate ones, if biased by selection) and other sources of Scientology are still within reach of a Google search.

On your server point, I find it unlikely that a powerful and rich organisation like Scientology would share servers with other sites. Yotsuba itself owns its own servers; /b/ lives exclusively on img.4chan.org, the worksafe boards reside on zip.4chan.org and everything else is on orz.4chan.org. If poor folks like us can afford servers, I'm willing to bet Scientology can as well.