**This article appeared in my RSS reader.

How the ex-Mormon community is blowing up online
Mashable! by Marissa Wenzke Yesterday

The hidden depths of the Web can offer a disguise, a cloak of anonymity.

And the ex-Mormon community is no different.

Many have gathered in a place where names aren't mentioned and personal backgrounds and histories are kept in the dark. There are 33,000 subscribers on the ex-Mormon subreddit, a community where church controversies and grief over leaving the religion are mostly aired freely.

Just 1.6 percent of the United States is Mormon, but the membership numbers of exmormon dwarf that of other ex-religious groups. The second-largest Reddit community for people who've left their faith is the exmuslim subreddit, which has a relatively paltry 15,459 subscribers. Read more...

http://mashable.com/2016/09/24/former-mormons-on-reddit/

**However, the link is broken. Google was able to index the story as well.

Inside the online world of ex-Mormons - Mashable
mashable.com/2016/09/24/former-mormons-on-reddit/
Mashable
2 days ago - Jeremy Runnells is a former Mormon who questioned the church in an 80-page document called the "CES Letter". He's pictured waving to ...

**Mashable.com site now has no reference to this piece. Looks like the author pulled it. Did the Church's PR dept make a threat?

**A Google search for "mashable ex-mormon" shows that several news aggregators picked it up in addition to Mashable.com and Mashable's Facebook page.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2016 07:22AM by levantlurker.

Here's the author of the possibly retracted article - Marissa Wenzke. Young women. Perhaps doesn't want to potentially tarnish her budding career by pissing off a powerful organization.

If true, this would be quite the abuse against press freedom.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/marissa-wenzke-87b04930

https://twitter.com/wenskayy

http://www.pacbiztimes.com/author/marissa-wenzke/

http://mashable.com/author/marissawenzke/

http://coveringreligion.org/author/mrw2173/

Are you kidding? How is an author retracting a story an abuse of press freedom? I'm not sure even that happened.

If the government forced the retraction of the story, that would be an abuse of press freedom. There is zero indication that happened.

All you have so far is a broken link. Put the tin foil back in the drawer.

What tin foil? I'm raising questions and speculating (something that we all do on this board). It's not just a broken link. There was an interesting story about us (the ex-Mormon online community) that was retracted, and I'm curious to know why. An online editor doesn't just bury a story that's just starting to pick up steam.

Press freedom abuse isn't limited to state actors. An army of corporate lawyers threatening legal action has the same effect, sometimes worse.

We all know that there have been movies, books, articles, songs (you name it) forms of expression which have been squashed by the same loving priesthood holders who excommunicate authors expressing religious dissent.

I'd love to see someone write a book about the experiences of artists and authors with something to say about the gravy train religion that is Mormonism.

My leaving Mormonism started with that hatred of the freedom of speech of The Other when average kindly ward-attending, potluck-bringing Mormons actually spat on my children passing out flyers.

They thought it was anti-Mormon "literature."

The internet has saved thousands if not millions of families from the ponzi-like predation of Mormonism and I, for one, am very grateful.

We need to sniff out and expose suspected instances of bullying against our American freedom of speech. And even if you think a particular suspicion is not well-founded, remember it is the exmormon community and ONLY the exmormon community that will call out the more subtle forms of this oppression.

I salute you for noticing the disappearance and let's repost in full on as many sites as possible.

Kathleen



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2016 12:31PM by anagrammy.

That article was noted by other exmos on the web. Yes, it was pulled for unknown reasons. And yes, the web has a long memory. That article has already been saved, archived, and shared elsewhere.

Hey everyone,

Apparently the story got mistakenly published by a careless intern. That's all there is to this.

Thank you for your attention.

Crw

Google search brought up the mashable link, just as OP states, but the page is down now.

No tinfoil, but possible someone was using her name illicitly, and she had it pulled?

'It's in the church's history. And the church did just that. Just over a year later, in December 2013, the organization published an essay called Race and the Priesthood, which details its history of not allowing Blacks to be priests or full members of the church. On its website, the LDS Church explains it launched the collection of controversial essays in 2013 because "so much information about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can be obtained from questionable and often inaccurate sources."

http://taggit.news/index.php/stream/item/2658681

Only first paragraph is here. Then you were asked to click a link, which is dead.

Here's a blurb on Marissa Wenzke's background:

Before studying journalism at Columbia University, Marissa Wenzke covered the California drought and reported on businesses from publicly trade oil companies to small town farmers for the Pacific Coast Business Times in Santa Barbara, CA. While there, she and three other Business Times staffers were named finalists for a Los Angeles Press Club award honoring their coverage of the shooting near UC Santa Barbara that left seven dead. Wenzke has a bachelor’s degree in political science from UCSB and led the independent campus newspaper there, the Daily Nexus, as editor-in-chief. She has also written for the Santa Barbara Independent. A free spirit at heart, she has a taste for simple pleasures like iced coffee, art shows and basset hounds.
--http://coveringreligion.org/contributors/

Ms. Wenzke -

If you happen to stumble across this thread, I just want to say "thank you." I have an incredible amount of respect and admiration for investigative journalism of all forms. There are few things more noble than the impartial seeking of truth. Most of us in ex-Mormon community can relate.

We don't know why your article was pulled. For all we know, it could be a technical glitch, or you decided that you simply didn't like it, or you didn't even author it. Regardless of the reason, know that everything you write, share, and contribute to the digital zeitgeist has the potential to change people's lives in positive and incredible ways. We hope that you continue to delve into the world of Mormonism, peel back the onion layers, and report your findings.

All the best,
Lˆ2



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2016 05:00PM by levantlurker.

The story is up, with this explanation:

"EDITOR'S NOTE: An unedited version of this story was originally published on September 24, because of a technical error. It was removed and subsequently republished on September 26 after minor edits."

http://mashable.com/2016/09/26/former-mormons-reddit/#0JUxNCVasZqC