The Advocates for Awareness of Watchtower Abuses (AAWA) [WARNING] (page 6)

ÁrbolesdeArabia

SORRY TO SEE CEDARS LEAVE, "IT TAKES A LIFE TO BUILD YOUR REPUTATION AND ONLY A SECOND TO DESTROY IT". PROVERB

This happened to the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg a few years ago. Somebody added him to a group called NAMBLA , the North American Man/Boy Love Association. Seems like he would have wanted to change it after this to where you have to accept a request once someone invites you to a group, but it's still the same.

BluePill2

jgnat: I worked for over 10 years in IT and ballistic is right. There is a way to correlate data. There is one possibility that I would use, but I don't want to disclose it here as this will stay here and can be found through Google.

I would really think twice before I would post here announcing that "my cover was blown on FB and such and such thing happened". Not being paranoid, but if you value your privacy, don't create footprints!

jgnat

I stand corrected. I checked an open Facebook group where I am moderator. Here are my options for addiing:

Add/Invite

The drop-down add was limited to those people I had friended.

NeonMadman

Do you blame Facebook also and not the AAWA for deciding not to take positive action by immediately removing the users that were added without consent after it was brought to their attention the effect this was having?

No, and I am not defending AAWA. In fact, I removed myself from their FB group after seeing on this site the drama they have created. When ex-JW activities start to make you feel as if you've never left the Watchtower, it's time to take a step back. So I'm not concerned with what they are doing (except to the extent that I think it stinks that people have been outed as doubters and apostates through AAWA's efforts), and I'm not interested in working with them. It's much the same reason why I don't post at this site nearly as often as I used to. I fight the WTS in my own way, without much of the aggravation.

Nickolas

Those on Facebook who value their privacy are contradictions onto themselves. That exhibitionism and anonymity can coexist is at best naiive, more exactly oxymoronic. The internet is forever. Whatever you issue from your computer is indelible and, for those who have taken an interest, will stay that way well beyond your own lifetime. None of us should be surprised if some day what we have had to say is presented back to us. All it takes is for someone to find it and make the association.

At first blush (for me) the AAWA seems a well meaning but poorly conceived strategic attempt to undermine the WTBTS. How unfortunate and incompetent to have had its credibility badly mauled so soon out of the gate. An organisation that destroys those who support it, even if inadvertently, cannot expect to prevail. It is apparent the AAWA needs to regroup, decide if they can undo the damage they have done to people (and, heartless as this will sound, more importantly to the struggle against Watchtower totalitarianism) or accept failure, learn from their mistake, back off and reinvent themselves under another banner. This one's already tattered.

ballistic

Those on Facebook who value their privacy are contradictions onto themselves. That exhibitionism and anonymity can coexist is at best naiive, more exactly oxymoronic.

I couldn't disagree more. Your assumptions are that people only have one online persona, whereas they have many just as we do in real life.

I have one set of jokes I tell to my mates. I have another set I will tell my mother, and I have one special joke saved up up the company of vicars.

In real life, we are different things to different people. "When in Rome".

I run an online business. I do not share my online business info on facebook, or on any other site, nor would I want to share my upbringing in a cult on facebook. I'm a member of other forums, hobby related and technical. I share none of these between them - they are all seperate.

What was forced on people by AAWA negates all this and runs rough-shod over people's personal privacy.

jws

Seems to me that if somebody had an extensive e-mail list, they could e-mail these people and ask them to go onto Facebook and join their group instead of an auto-add.

I agree that this is a terrible breach. If at any time the list of members was exposed to the world, you can bet somebody somewhere who is not a friend of our community captured all of those names. So that in itself outs them at least for being part of the AAWA.

I agree that if you were auto-added, and talk about it here, it could be a further problem. That creates a link between a list of names from AAWA and an anonymous name here. And certainly narrows things down for somebody to piece things together.

Say John Doe was on the AAWA list and somebody got a list of those names or even saw it on his Facebook page. Now a JWN poster, let's make up a name xyzzy posts that he was affected. Is it John Doe or one of the other 1000 names? You don't know for sure, but now you know xyzzy was on that list. If xyzzy's other posts reveal details about his past (experiences, locations, descriptions of people, etc), that could be matched up to a certain person.

If not for the AAWA Facebook debacle, xyzzy's posts could be anybody. But now it's one of 1000 people.

Is Facebook seriously the place to organize? Can't they get their own website?

This whole thing sounds like egos to me. They are letting their own inflated egos lead the way.

I have watched one particular AAWA organizer exhibit this in posts before. Big claims. Then he's contradicted, but he'll struggle and struggle to claim he was still right. Never will admit he made a mistake or was wrong about anything. I've seem him circle around to the complete opposite position and still act as if he was right all along. Ego.

betterdaze

Can't they get their own website?

They have one. And they could very easily set up a "members only" PRIVATE message board there for volunteers, advisors etc. to communicate.

But they value attention-whoring over privacy, that much has become clear. The emotional approach over the rational one, with typical results.

Ego.

NPD.

brinjen

"And they could very easily set up a "members only" PRIVATE message board there for volunteers, advisors etc. to communicate."

I think that's the whole point. It's not difficult or expensive to set up your own private board where people can choose their username etc which Facebook just doesn't allow for as it was not intended to be utilised in that way in the first place. You can even give your posters their own boards where they can select exactly who sees what is posted there (there are forums around who do offer just that). A bit of forethought and research could have prevented all of this.

The Advocates for Awareness of Watchtower Abuses (AAWA) [WARNING]