In its unending techno-censorship war on the Internet, Scientology has made another in its long history of unscrupulous moves. This time, Scientology surreptitiously orchestrated the installment of an invisible Internet censoring devise on the computers of its adult members. The danger of Scientology's tampering with the Internet goes beyond its own realm of criminality and fraud, but also branches out and provides an example for other similarly unethical organizations. It is time for the Internet to massively protest Scientology's ongoing censorship attempts, before other totalitarian groups learn from its example.
The censoring device was a program hidden on a CD provided to members by Scientology as part of its program to get Scientologists to set up home pages endorsing Scientology. The censorship software was developed from a program designed to prevent children from viewing material inappropriate for them, such as pornography and obscene language. But Scientology's version twists the program to prevent its grown-up members from viewing material critical of Scientology, largely without their consent, even if language and graphics are of G-level rating. In fact, the "church" has banned its members from viewing the terms "God" and "religion."
CHOPPY SURFING: Internet use becomes very difficult
Scientologists who have unknowingly installed the censoring device onto their computers have these strange results on the Internet:
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On the Web, censored sites and search engines such as
www.xenu.net,
www.entheta.net,
www.factnet.org, and
www.dejanews.com are simply not accessible. It is as if web pages critical of Scientology do not exist.
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On pages which are accessible, censored domain titles, words, and names are listed as blanks. For example, "www.xenu.net" might read " . . ". In addition, certain terms cause web pages to stop loading altogether.
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In IRC discussions, some censored words appear blank, while others - such as Xenu, Wollersheim, and Erlich -- immediately disconnect the censorwared user from the channel. According to formerly censored ex-Scientologist Charlotte Kates, "It was nearly impossible to converse on IRC with the filter."
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As for email, Scientologists with the filter program are unable to send or receive emails to or from people or web sites that Scientology has censored. So cult victims cannot converse with anyone the cult disapproves of, including exit counselors and victim-assistance organizations.
