I used to think that this was an absurd claim. That the church would never intentionally monitor and scour the internet and then try to cover things up.

I thought these were fantasies made by disgruntled people.

Even recently with the missionary blogs being made private and people claiming that somehow church HQ was involved I thought that was crazy...

But I remembered another jewel of a memory on my mission.

In one of my areas I lived in the downtown part of a city. One day the city was having a big festival. MY companion at the time wasn't a complete tool so we went to go check out the festival. (we told ourselves we would contact, but really we just wanted to have some fun)

Anyway we were recognized by this guy who was with a camera man. We did an impromptu interview in the middle of the festival with some basic questions. We were caught off guard and blundered our way through, but hey it was fun...

Anyway a few days later my MP called us. He told me that he had received MULTIPLE calls from SALT LAKE about that interview was put up on youtube.

Just a few days. I looked up the video, it wasn;t viral or anything. You can only find it if you know the key terms to search for.

Yet people in salt lake found it and hounded my MP to hound us.

A new rule was made. Don't give interviews without permission. hahaha...

So yes they do scour the internet and they are creepily efficient and they do take steps to cover things up as much as they can.

While I don't doubt that HQ is monitoring the internet, I think the main reason that blogs are removed are because RfM readers will go and comment on them. Having a blog go from being read by just a few friends with zero comments to being bombarded with negative criticism from strangers is probably enough to make them invite-only or removed entirely.

You are probably right. Thats much more sensible.

But it is not totally insane to suggest that the people in Salt Lake are not aware of it all the same. Which is totally what I used to think.

very good example!!!!!. this is very enlighting because the fact the video wasn't viral. I think RFM is really making an impact on Mormonism. Yes RFM we are getting famous. Well we have a lot of brainiacs on this board. Thanks for this good example. It's pretty cool.

Of course they monitor the Internet. So do you. So do I. It is called "reading".

With the firestorm here over the mission blogs, posting of names, addresses, URLs and phone numbers, people at COB will notice. This surprises you?

Okay I read the internet. But I dont have a pulse on every little piece of info going on. If some random person posts an obscure video I am not aware of it the next day.

No one would just randomly look up an interview on youtube unless they were looking for it. My guess would be that church members at the gathering saw you and looked up the interview and called your MP.

When I was at BYU, ages ago, I worked on the Daily Universe, the college newspaper. This was pre-internet. Someone wrote an article on the BYU Jerusalem Center, which was just being built. The article was fine but apparently the headline offended the bigwigs because we got a phone call the same morning that the article ran in the newspaper. We were told the General Authorities were VERY upset with the headline and wanted us to know. The poor kid who wrote the headline got called into the Journalism department head's office and chewed out.

So make no mistake, even before the internet, the people up at church headquarters monitor everything they can get their hands on regarding the church, ready to howl in offense or brag with pride, depending on what was written.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2014 11:00AM by CA girl.

I'm curious. What was the headline? This might deserve a new topic.

What kind of headline would get their panties in a knot?

CA girl what years were you on the staff? I was from 84-86. The era of the Cougareat cockroach scandal. Do I know you? I knew there was a reason I always enjoy your posts.

Probably - I was there 85-86. If you want to contact me off board, I'll tell Susan I/S to give you my e-mail address but that's about all the IRL about my time at BYU I'm comfortable posting on the board. If I say exactly what positions I held, it will be way too easy to figure out who I am :)

That was so long ago! But I do recall a tall smart blonde who I think was from the Bay Area and we worked together on choosing letters to the editor spring of 86. If that's you, let's go out for tea any time you are near your old home town. If its not, maybe I still want to go out for tea someday because I love your posts. And now this is going to bug me. That whole group was smart enough to find their way out, so I would love to know which ones actually did.

That isn't me - I was short and a brunette. I'm trying to remember who the editorial page editor was back then but drawing a blank. I was one of the other editors but I did write an editorial around that time about bad Utah drivers and the editorial page editor was bugged because it dried up all her letters to the editor complaining about bad Utah drivers that start coming in around the time of the first snow.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/09/2014 11:49AM by CA girl.

I know first-hand that TSCC has been monitoring Facebook and other blog websites, from the beginning. I also know that Mormons have been putting rapid, repetitive "hits" on their own Mormon advertising sites. I know that Mormon missionaries infiltrate various websites, including their own, the Deseret News, Tribune, and other news sites that have any article that mentions TSCC in any way. Look at some of the pro-Mormon comments: some are almost word-for-word as other comments posted on other boards. I'm sure these missionaries are instructed what to write.

How do I know? When I was still TBM, I knew several senior missionaries that did this full-time, for their missions. They used to call it a "computer mission," and were told to be vague about what they actually did. They told me this in trust, and I won't mention their names or mine. I should have broken that trust, when they went after my children, and found my kids' private information on Fakebook, and sent the male missionaries, the female missionaries, former Scout leaders, former YW/YM leaders, former high school Mormon friends, etc, over to their houses to harass them.

You should post your story on here under a new topic. I'm sure people would be very interested in it.

I agree with Johnnyboy. Please post your story so we can bring to light the real truth of TSCC.

I became convinced that this was happening on Religion Dispatches years ago; Joanna Brooks' articles (and now Holly Welker's) would get hundreds of comments while others only got one or two ... and most of the comments (like 95% or more) were from "priesthood holders" defending the status quo.

A modern "reputation management" strategy for the internet absolutely involves a sophisticated mix of feet on the street, recognized "experts," (in this case apologists and as of this past week, apostles going live on Twitter...makes me laugh), and monitoring and analytics software. They have any number of ways to monitor individual sites as well as keyword trends and patterns across the entire web. And I have no doubt they're employing all of these things.

They can monitor all they want.

However, what they want...and need..is to control the internet.

Ain't gonna happen.

I would think that a TBM assigned to search out negative information about LDS Inc online would be very busy, and would not find their task particularly spiritually rewarding.

I just registered and posted today because the Mormon cabal has eliminated the damning rickross site. You can see for yourself -- from this article, click on the rickross link and see what happens. http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon426.htm

It is pretty normal for any business to monitor and control its brand. They don't have the ability to control anything other than its own sites and members though. We're safe.

Monitoring Web sites and news sources about COJCOLDS is exactly what the Committee for Strengthening Members is tasked with doing. So of course they are aware of all that is going on.

From what I've learned, monitoring the internet is also a very easy, effective way for them to both monitor and intimidate their sheeple into doing exactly what they're told or face disciplinary measures.

researcher Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> From what I've learned, monitoring the internet is
> also a very easy, effective way for them to both
> monitor and intimidate their sheeple into doing
> exactly what they're told or face disciplinary
> measures.

Although that may be correct, it is also a conceding that there will be no new recruiting.

In this day and age, the very idea of that would be offensive to the type of people that they are seeking.

LDS Inc will continue to recruit. It will no longer recruit people by anything resembling honest means.

The only recruits will be people born into it, people coerced by love interest, people with life problems, and the indigent.

None of these will make the expected donations of revenue.

This is why the hemorrhaging of young people BIC is such a problem, and why we are seeing such a diversification of financial assets.

Financially it does not matter how much money LDS Inc has. If there is a negative cash flow to an empire...things will go bad (and for all you right wingers..stop now..unlike the US, LDS Inc no longer can mint their own money)

Running an empire is an expensive endeavor.

Very good points. I was thinking of other totalitarian regimes like communism or nazism where citizens are rewarded for ratting out other citizens. Just like the dhs and their motto of "If you see something, say something."

That's exactly what I thought too researcher.

Let em! They might learn a thing or two about how the world really looks and thinks about the morg!!

HERE I AM MORMON LURKER RATS!! Come and get me!! you ain't got enough game....

Ron Burr

This one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftb_JiN-GQo

Nope, that's not it.

I'm thinking about sharing it here though. I get a kick out of it now, looking back... but something makes me hesitate.

infringed on their copyright I had mail in less than an hour.

wow, that's pretty crazy...

I do know the church is very protective over the use of missionary name tags. I think part of their gripe was that we were wearing the name tags and didn't have "permission" to do an interview.

Oh and PS - over the years we have seen different COB offices and their lawyers in the logs. We don't look very often and it is kind of a pain now but I would bet if we took the time to dig through things we would find them in there. But really, it would soooo not be worth the work!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2014 09:25PM by Susan I/S.

The internet is literally the morg's number one mortal enemy. From their perspective it would be foolish not to monitor, censor, cover up. The interenet is killing them .

Go away. No trolling allowed.

A few years ago I started noticing regular hits on my blog from "ldschurch.org" IP addresses. In response, I wrote that I wasn't sure if they were really monitoring me or if a lot of people in the church office building were just that bored. The hits immediately stopped, and instead hits from the More Good Foundation took their place. After a while, either they realized they weren't going to find anything terribly juicy, or they just started masking their IP addresses. I didn't much care.

I'd forgotten about that episode, but a while later (2 years ago or so, IIRC) a friend called me from the church office building. He said, "You're never going to believe this. I was just in a meeting where they were discussing web sites and blogs that might be hostile to the church and what they should do about them. They had a PowerPoint going, and they showed different blogs and web sites and discussed whether any action was needed. I almost laughed out loud when I saw your blog on the screen."

He tells me they decided I wasn't particularly harmful to their cause (Dang! I'll have to try harder).

Still, how funny is it that they obsess over such stuff?

Runtu, what is your blog?