Is the Watchtower Society strong enough to win this war with the internet?

by jack w 76 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  fullofdoubtnow

  The watchtower may be rich and powerful, but not enough to bring down all the anti - jw sites on the internet. Try as they will to demonize it, jws, particularly the younger, computer savvy ones, will still access it, particularly when they realise that the wt has it's own site. Finding that out was a major surprise to me, I had never really thought of looking on the net till I saw that the org had its own site. After I found out, I thought "why not?" Then of course, you find other things out, stuff they don't want you to see.

  Whilst I am certain the org would like to stifle the internet, they will never be able to. The internet will still be here when the wts are long gone.

  Linda
• 

  JT

  Imagine going back to say the mindset of the WT organisation in 1970 for example; never in their worst nightmare could the Watchtower back then have imagined a scenario whereby every last foolishness they have ever published would be a click away in the privacy of someones own home. That private letters to DO's, CO's and Elders would be visible for public viewing worldwide. Never could they have forseen that a network would exist whereby former JW's could get together and air their views and more importantly offer support to each other. The advances in technology in the last decade absolutely stagger me; and who knows what lies ahead

  ############

  man this is one deep post above
• 

  Dogpatch

  I think Eduardo is right when he says,

  "It is too early to say that the Society has "declared war" and plans on engaging all forms of Internet speech that is critical of it in litigative battles ala Scientology.

  "So far all we have is the stern warning to its members to stay off the Internet when it comes to JWism and the one lawsuit against Quotes. At this point Quotes remains unique, and there were a few critical errors that he committed with that project that opened him up to a lawsuit based on copyright infringement.

  "If the Society does begin to engage other websites for the sake of trying to squash criticism it will be a futile effort as we all know and any single victories would be pyrrhic at best.

  -Eduardo Leaton Jr., Esq."

  That is a close synopsis to what my attorney said. They apprently DID have some copyrighted books on a CD in the beginning. Plus the site is more unique in just having all the information put up the way it was. However, at least in the U.S. (or at least the sate of California) no one has the right to deprive you of your livelihood, yet their stipulation was that Peter could not start any site about the Watchtower, which wouldn't wash in court here at all.

  Randy Watters

  Net Soup! http://www.freeminds.org
• 

  hamsterbait

  We need to create a global linkup between posters that does not depend on anything other than email to keep it up and running.

  Fore example I feel I can trust Jeanniebeanz, tetra, whoever, and we just keep transferring info from one to another mirror site or member - much like the WT kept ahead of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.

  Don't know how to plan this, but we can exchange pms on this one.

  HB
• 

  hamsterbait

  Incidentally,

  "The Slave" if the end is as near as they claim, is now beating everybody who disagrees with them so badly, they must be an evil slave now. Unlike the scriptures which say to ecourage and especially love those with doubts. Paul said nobody should be cast out and made a prey of Satan... Hm....

  (Associating with the drunkards means signing up to the UN, along with the drunken harlot)

  HB
• 

  fahrvegnugen

  Plenty of others have already said it quite well, but I'll add my voice to the mix:

  No they can't win this war. Just like communist China, they are discovering that trying to keep people from communicating and learning via the web is a losing proposition. As long as the web is available, people are only going to become more and more savvy at using it to spread information. I think it will hasten either the transformation or the demise of JWs, but it won't happen overnight.
• 

  jack w

  I thought that the Watchtower Observer site had also been shut down. I am correct on this?

  Thanks,

  jack.
• 

  NewLight2

  Quote:"I thought that the Watchtower Observer site had also been shut down. I am correct on this?
  Thanks,jack."
  
  Jack,
  
  The answer is yes and no. The WT THREATENED Kent's ISP. So the ISP raised their hosting rates so high that Kent felt he had no other option but to shut it down.
  You can go to this thread and within that thread I posted a link to the original thread about this event.
  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/104570/1.ashx
  
  NewLight2
• 

  Ticker

  They will try but they won't every stop the accessible amount of information about what the Witnesses withhold from their membership and oustsiders. Most people are not afraid of the net and their warnings must seem a little bit petty to most rank and file, but pherhaps it may have some impact upon the hardliners and computer illiterate. No doubt the Society is attempting to further demonize in the memberships minds the many debate forums and sites critiquing their beliefs found on the web.

  Ticker
• 

  Oroborus21

  Howdy Randy,

  don't want to hijack the thread...but I didn't see such a harsh restriction in the Settlement Agreement. Mosier is prohibited from operating 1) a site that is "similar to the Quotes website" and 2) any website that uses a Society trademark that is "confusingly similar"

  With respect to the first part I interpret it as being in the same infringing fashion NOT in purpose. I don't see that the agreement restricts Mosier from operating a website that is critical of the society and in fact such a clause in the settlement agreement would be unenforceable and void as being contrary to public policy and a violation of his Canadian free speech rights. Mosier can start up a site that is critical of the Society he just has to make sure his use of any copyrighted materials are within the bounds of the law. The settlement agreement actually specifies the "term" (probably meaning the length of years of copyright) but it would be doubtful that the Society could go after him if he used current copyrighted works in compliance with Canada's fair dealing (similar to Fair Use) exception.

  As to the second point, Mosier could probavly get away with a site that had the domain: the.Watchtower.sucks.big.balls.com or whatever :-) since that would not be confusingly similar as apparently "quotes.watchtower.ca" though even whether the quotes was confusing was an arguable point.

  Of course now that he is on their radar and they have this agreement if he does anything like using copyrighted materials, even if he does so correctly, the Society is likely to go after him again, if anything to make an example and set precedent.

  -Eduardo