Latest WT: "Facebook = a powerful medicine"?? (page 3)

sir82

What's next? Wash your hands after u pee?

You laugh, but about 20 years ago we had a CO who devoted the majority of his Thursday talk to this very topic....

Amelia Ashton

What's next? Wash your hands after u pee?

We had that one at an a$$embley about the year 2000

00DAD

... I also think the internet pornography issue is a "Red Herring" invoked to cloak their real concern ...the JWs' discovery of sites like this!

Exactly! Recent letters to elders have made it clear that they'll only judicially prosecute cases involving "abhorrent" pornography (whatever THAT means).

But have an "apostate" thought and you're out on your ear in a hot second!

Found Sheep

this reminds me of one of the last meedings I listened to. An entire part on putting your name and congregation on your books.

I remember as I was in my late teens, even early twenties, my mother would constantly remind me of the most inane things. She would say, "Can I give you a little advice... yadda yadda yadda." I just wanted to tell her, no **** sherlock, but instead i turned around and gave her the look instead. She didn't like it but she understood eventually to stop telling me how to live my life. Controlling religions breed controlling parents... and the same goes for spouses.

Yan Bibiyan

00DAD, I think "abhorrent apostacy" would make a universal, easy to apply, fail-safe and undeniable disfelloshipping offense.

MrFreeze

I'll tell you why they don't say Facebook by name. There are so many different social networking sites out there it is just easier to lump them all in one category. Plus, when some new fancy social networking comes out after the article, they can say that it applies to that as well.

fugue

The wtbts never lets facts get in the way of a good story.

"For decades, the faithful slave class has warned us about such sites. How grateful we are for these spiritual health alerts!"

I searched the CD ROM, and the first time the word "internet" appeared is 1995:

*** g95 11/8 p. 29 Watching the World ***
Computer Porn Available to Children
As Australian schools connect up to the Internet global information network, they are also linking up to what amounts to a moral minefield. According to The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, they can access “X-rated photos of nude children, orgies, video clips from on-line brothels, a ‘bill of rights’ for people wishing to have sex with animals—and information on how to join a masturbation ‘chat-line.’” The article adds: “Passwords or proof of age were not required—just an ordinary dial-up connection.” Experts say it is impossible to censor the network “because its structure was designed . . . by the US Defence Department to survive a nuclear war.” The data is not tidily located in one spot but is mirrored on thousands of data bases around the world. Recently a Swedish researcher counted 5,651 messages or postings about child pornography in just four news groups in one week.

So they have been warning about such sites for 16.5 years, not "decades.

I thought they had a research team that spends countless hours fact-checking everything they write.

cedars

Nicely spotted fugue - I thought that sounded odd when I read it, but had other things to focus on. Most people, myself included, didn't even know about the internet in 1992! Facts are obviously superfluous in these articles. Over-statement rules.

Cedars

okage

Let's not forget the BIG picture here: planning. If they spend six issues of Atalaya and four or five issues of Despertad talking about how bad the internet is, when something major comes up regarding kidnappings or cyberbullying, they can say how they were the ONLY ONES warning about the dangers of the internet.

As per fugue's post, the first mention of the internet was 1995 and talked about the "moral minefield" of it all. Do they ever post about the good things the internet has done? Like communicating with people who don't have phones or live in harsh environments where even posting an email is an adventure? How social networking helped remove multiple dictators in the last 18 months?

Or being able to show videos that open our eyes to the corruption of the world, like 6 policemen in Orange County, California beating an unarmed homeless man to death? Or show us official compiled statistics of individual states, countries, and microscoping it down to local communities so we don't have to wait overnight to find out what happened in our neighborhood?

I have a comment I'd love to post in regard to the Watchtower, but I believe it'd get me booted from this site. Oh well, I don't have to say it, but you all know exactly what I'm thinking...

Latest WT: "Facebook = a powerful medicine"??