The Great Watchtower Internet Retreat (page 2)

WTWizard

I hope that brings this forum up to the top. And I hope everyone researching the witlesses in the future simply goes right to the top of the page (here), and then thinks twice before joining.

wha happened?

I suspect that this new Internet announcement was primarily designed to draw attention away from the announcement that they are cutting down on the printing of the magazines again.

Spot on right. There's never bad news in that organization. They have never retreated, nor errored in any of their affairs, according to what is communicated to the Rank and file

OnTheWayOut

I have to agree that the mention of the internet is to cover the "FURTHER" reduction in mags. Smoke-screen.

I must say that promoting (even to outsiders of those in attendance at meetings) the internet to learn the truth will be to this publishing company what promoting downloadable books to eReaders was to Borders Books in the United States- They are bankrupt and gone. Perhaps Borders hoped to just offer this eReader to the younger crowd and maintain book sales. I think they totally underestimated their customers. Even if they preferred books over eReaders, they saw a bargain in downloading, or going to Amazon.com for less expensive printed materials.

The internet will not be kinder to WTS. Just as book readers discovered Amazon while shopping for books, curious people will discover jwfacts.com or freeminds.org while learning about Watchtower beliefs. If they go to youtube, WTS is basically finished with those people. The loss of curious people will feed back into faithful people who say "I wonder what they read/viewed to turn them off."

I gotta imagine it's one of two scenarios:

1. Old fuddy duddies at the top just don't get how much damage the internet can do to them.

2. The fuddy duddies do realize the trends and just cannot fight anymore, so they are positioned to "take the money and run."

Oh how I hope that #2 is the case, but history shows it's #1.

wha happened?

well insider - outsider info with religions is nothing new. The WT isn't concerened about being transparent much so I see more of this insider - outsider information to tighten up

Dogpatch

Keep in mind that Google search results can be very misleading. If your browser accepts cookies, when you do a search on a term like "watchtower," it will bring up sites that you have visited before near the top. From browser to browser it will give different results. I have Safari installed and set NOT to accept cookies to get a better idea what comes up first. I always wondered why the results were different from google search according to the browser and the settings you use. I use cookies on all browsers except Safari, which I use to test these things.

It also changes from day to day, on sites other than the WT itself. Go figure.

Randy

Christ Alone

I posted this on the thread with the actual letter. I totally agree with you DT. Here was my other post:

I think this is a great thing for 2 very specific reasons. Consolidating their sites into 1 large site will have the effect of lowering their online presence. Also, most people doing personal research use the internet heavily. For example, if I wanted to know the basics of how a doctor performs a face transplant, I will probably not make a day out of it by going to the library and checking out books to get a completely comprehensive idea of how it's done. Most likely I will go on a site like howstuffworks.com and find out the basics. The same would be true of researching JWs. Most people will research them on the interent.

The benefit of them consolidating the info to 1 site is this. Most people do not only look at 1 single site when they are researching. They will browse a few sites or more. In the past it may have been possible for someone to go to watchtower.org first and look around. Then maybe head over to jw-media.org and then finally jw.org. Now with 1 site, they will be forced to look at other non-jw sites. Perhaps now they will stumble onto jwfacts.com or freeminds.org, or carm.org/jehovah'switnesses, or even 4jehovah.org.

I see only good things coming out of this. Smaller WTs. Less internet presence (parousia... :-) ). More opportunities for those ignorant of WT schemes to arm themselves. This is great news!

sir82

the Euro-Witnesses were contracted with a German public relations firm that was giving advice on developing and re-branding the public image of the WTS. Some things that came out of that experiment were the Public vs. Study versions, and the look of the Witness only publications, KM's and Study versions of the WT.

What?!?!?! You mean it wasn't holy spirit?

Shocking!!!

Magi

They're just alienating themselves even more. This is the information age, if you want to find out something on any topic you google it. Ex-jw sites will pop up and even though jws are told to stay away from those sites, anyone on the outside trying to look in has not been told or warned to not look at these other sites. It would be ridiculous for a jw to go to someone's door, strike up a conversation, reference the jw.org site before leaving and then tell the householder to avoid at all costs these other sites that say bad things. And this householder could easily forget the website's name or misplace the publication that had it mentioned on it. "Oh, I'll just google jehovah witness." Very interested to see how this plays out.

wha happened?

If it's true they to an outside consulting firm, it just proves how out of touch they are that they have to hire outsiders, to communicate with thier own people. This is so not a religion any more than a publishing company. Reminds me of a parent hiring a therapist because they don't understand nor communicate effectively with thier children. In other words, dysfunctional.

Magi

Agree, wha happened. I don't know what's more sick, a mind controlling religion or mind controlling publishing company. Dysfunctional and warped.

The Great Watchtower Internet Retreat

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