by Sic Semper Tyrannis 423 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Venetian said -
"A number of posters on here need to climb off the AAWA-wrecker ball bandwagon (and that includes you simon) and think rationally"
You're now claiming Simon is on the AAWA-wrecker ball bandwagon. You're just stirring the pot and it's not nice. Simon is trying to do the right thing here and he has done an excellant job. How about showing some respect for him? This is his forum!!!!!
Another one here who was added without me asking. Besty, I just saw their post about you and find it kinda ironic you were dropped from the group for breaching privacy (when there is only 3 names who are public apostates anyway) while all of this is going on. Former member of the AAWA now.
Facebook is really too public for any group of this sort. There are plenty of forum and newsgroups software freely available... hosting doesn't cost much nowadays and it's not hard to make your group private altogether. On the forum I admin, I have a section there which can only be accessed by those I approve. I have my own criteria and the rules were set as a joint effort between myself, the mods and the posters of the forum. It's a very small forum so it suits everyone quite well though they are all aware there never are any guarantees on the internet.
In short... there are plenty of other options that don't require much resources, just a bit of time and research.
hey brinjen - good to hear from a lowkey community builder - you know what works and what can't possibly.
I worked pretty closely with randy on freeminds for 3 years so also have some ideas on what might work. Along with seeing various shitstorms over 8 years or so on JWN.
As of now, I am still in good standing at AAWA :-)
Good to hear Besty.
are we friends on facebook? :-) now you know how to find me :-))))
Done.
Listener
I have the highest respect for simon. He is mature enough to handle critisism. And if i overstepped the mark with the "bandwagon" reference to simon, then i apologise for that.
Just my fourpennyworth - for what it's worth:
Cedars obviously has a good and lively mind and much of his research into the WTBTS has great value.
But he's still a newbie ex; a newbie ex who has yet to come out of the closet.
When one leaves the JW's and comes across a site such as this, together with it's characters from all around the world, quickly becoming a respected and valued poster can be a heady mix indeed.
Such a heady mix that when that person meets up with resistance to his methods and ideas, he can become very impatient and frustrated with those who don't go along with him.
In fact, being an ex-witness can sometimes be more time and mind consuming than actually being a witness.
Yes, we'd all like to see the end of the WTBTS together with it's Governing Body. And it will happen one day, probably just by slowly fading away. But us ex's need to remember that for us, the time isn't short, the door to the ark isn't closing, and (forgive me for the over-used cliche) the sky won't fall in if all of this takes a few decades yet.
This is where the "business model" approach to the AAWA became the problem.
Facebook is today's more powerful tool to promote an idea or a product and build a "community". Because of the "business-like" approach to structuring the AAWA, they turned to Facebook as the obvious media of choice to propagate their message and build a community as quickly as possible, because that's what Facebook is good at. So far so good. This is business reasoning.
However, Facebook sucks big time when it comes to protecting the privacy of its user base. And here lies the core of this issue. When weighing the need for rapid growth / building momentum versus the need to carefully protect the identity of the people they wanted to help, the business-like values weighted more than the value of human rights.
Now, we all make mistakes and make bad calls. Choosing the Facebook route was a bad call in this particular situation. But it could have been fixed. What is unforgivable is to not correct the situation when the very first reports came out that something was wrong and people were getting exposed and life-wrecking consequences were being produced because people were being outed as a result of the way Facebook operates. At this point it became clear that the value of NUMBERS and EGOS outweighted the value of the human lives that were in jeopardy. In brief, this is what's wrong. And apparently, continues to stay wrong.
It's a pitty, but unfortunately, not a surprise.
Eden
Just want to say to the opening poster Sic, that I'm really sorry for the situation that you've found yourself in through no fault of your own making. I really hope that you can get things sorted out and be able to minimise the damge that's been done to you.
Last night I decided to keep my FB totally disconnected from anything exJW. So the few friends I had from the exJW community are now gone from my list of FB friends (reluctantly). I know I can still keep in touch with them elsewhere and feel it had to be done. I cannot trust FB privacy after this complete fiasco.
When/if I out myself it'll be because it's what I want and not because of being outed by some mess up on FB!
