AAWA- i was signed up w/out my consent??

by Monsieur 7 Replies latest watchtower scandals

  • Monsieur
    Monsieur

    I'm obvioulsy out of the loop here, i'm reading comments around that posters at jwn are being 'forced' signed up at this other site?

    is this correct??

  • Angharad
    Angharad

    No people on facebook were being force-signed up to a facebook group called AAWA - some of those people also happen to be JWN members. This is nothing to do with JWN other than people are coming here to discuss the problem.

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    It is obvious that the AAWA group did not have a mailing list for JWN members. Simon and Angharad take our privacy very seriously here. I was not invited, for instance.

    Monsieur, does your Facebook profile include membership to an AAWA group?

  • NeonMadman
    NeonMadman

    In Facebook groups, if you are a member, you have the ability to add your FB friends to the group. Add them, not invite them. Of course, they can always leave the group if they want. But apparently AAWA added hundreds of people to their group and somehow neglected to maintain adequate secrecy, such that it could be seen by FB friends of those people (some of whom were themselves active JWs) that they were in the group. As a result, some current JWs who were trying to fly under the radar were outed to their JW friends. Even if they chose to leave the group, their cover had already been blown. There has been much controversy on this board about AAWA's handling (or non-handling, as the case may be) of the issue.

  • Monsieur
    Monsieur

    ok, thanks for explaining.

    sounds like a real mess.

  • UsuaIusern@me
    UsuaIusern@me

    Monsieur

    Understatement of the year

  • talesin
    talesin

    In Facebook groups, if you are a member, you have the ability to add your FB friends to the group. Add them, not invite them. Of course, they can always leave the group if they want.

    NeonMadman - actually, sorry, but when setting up a Facebook group , the administrator(s) can decide to click a selection that ensures NO ONE can be added to the group without their approval.

    Members may tell friends about the group, and in turn that person can request to be a member. They will NOT become a member until an administrator approves it.

    That is for 'closed' and 'secret' groups.

    If one chooses to make the group 'public', then members can freely add whoever they want.

    That is a very important distinction.

    tal

  • NeonMadman
    NeonMadman

    NeonMadman - actually, sorry, but when setting up a Facebook group , the administrator(s) can decide to click a selection that ensures NO ONE can be added to the group without their approval.

    Members may tell friends about the group, and in turn that person can request to be a member. They will NOT become a member until an administrator approves it.

    That is for 'closed' and 'secret' groups.

    If one chooses to make the group 'public', then members can freely add whoever they want.

    Clearly, though, that isn't what AAWA did, although they certainly should have, given the situation of many ex- or borderline Witnesses. I was added to the group without being consulted about it. That doesn't bother me, because I'm not trying to avoid any JW friends or family knowing about my concerns with the organization, but it could and did wreak havoc for some who were in that situation. It appears that AAWA was shooting for high numbers and failed to consider the impact for those who were added to the group.

    AAWA should have been more on top of things, but I still think that Facebook's setup in this regard is problematic. Nobody should be able to be added to any group, public or otherwise, without his or her approval. If I think you might like to be in a group, there should be a mechanism for me to invite you, not add you, and you should not become a member of the group until you accept the invitation. If I have a FB friend that I think you might like to be friends with too, I can send a friend suggestion. However, you and the other person don't become FB friends until both of you approve the transaction. That's essentially how I think it should work with groups, and if it did, this would be a non-issue, since nobody who didn't actually want to become part of AAWA's group would have been in it, and as a result, nobody would have been outed to their JW friends as a potential apostate.

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit