I have just been disinvited to my brother's wedding - Thanks AAWA!

by Sic Semper Tyrannis 423 Replies latest watchtower scandals

• 

  bohm

  Eden: I think its particular funny given how many here have delibrately infiltrated jw facebook groups and boards to stir shit.

  While that was pretty harmless and funny, its amazingly arrogant to think the people who litterally think they are doing Gods work if they do exactly the same simply wont think of that idea.

  This board private topics section is "secret" the same way the facebook group is. Wonder why Caders wont use his real name when its "secret"..

  "but but we checked the box that said 'secret'"!
• 

  zed is dead

  I got it for you Dagney:

  Juan Viejo2

  Re: AAWA is here!! (The Association of Anti-Watchtower Activists) posted 10 days ago (4/8/2013)

  Post 844 of 850 Since 6/17/2009

  Dagney and others - There were a few overeager folks - definitely not associated with AAWA - who took it upon themselves to use the Facebook auto referral feature and link literally hundreds of new members to our FB group site without our knowledge. That site was supposed to be a private, protected FB page, but we realized that over 1300 folks were suddenly members, many whom we did not know at all. Our elation quickly turned to panic. We knew that something was terribly wrong, but we faced the dilemma as to how to determine who wanted to be on the group from those who had been added and linked there without their knowledge. Obviously, the site was no longer "private." We decided to make it an open group and let those who wanted to stay to remain, those who wanted to leave to opt out. For now, my suggestion is that if you are getting any messages from the AAWA site via Facebook and you did not join our page on your own, please immediately opt out. I can assure you that none of your personal information has been retained. We won't be offended and understand your displeasure with the situation. I have personally contacted the primary person responsible (not a member or associate of AAWA) asked that person to cease and desist from linking anyone without their knowledge or permission. We are confident that this was not done maliciously, but rather due to over eagerness to try to show support for our group. There may be others besides this one person who were also over-enthusiastic about our group and were just trying to help, but at this stage we have not identified any one taking action at that same level. I apologize on behalf of the AAWA advisory group (many are sound asleep at this hour) and am personally sorry that we didn't act in a more assertive manner sooner. But what is done is done and now we must move on. The good news is that the Facebook page is, in fact, now open to ANYONE WHO WANTS TO JOIN THE DISCUSSION... JV
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  Simon

  And yes, of course, to reveal the geographical location of a poster is just as serious. Especially if that country is a small country with only a few congregations, where basically every JW knows every other JW.

  I want to answer this in more detail:

  While the overwhelming majority of posters are from large countries and regions that cover a large physical area or population (e.g. US states) I take privacy very seriously and obviously rectified things immediately and apologise for it happening. It was due to me combining two code modules: part from the current site which let people set the region and country in their profile and part from an anti-spammer module which identified regions and countries from an IP address - at some point I referenced the 'wrong' region/country pair to update a profile and didn't notice because all the ones I randomly checked just happened to have their location already set anyway (which matched).

  The reason for not 'announcing' it was to not draw attention in case of a very slight risk that someone could possibly be identified from it even though I don't think it's likely, if even possible (it would neecd other information to be exposed as well). Unfortunately, Cedars seems to feel it is a risk worth taking by highlighting it.

  I've been busy building in some other features to help protect people's identities further and ensure this site continues to be a safe place for already-out or questioning-JWs to visit.
• 

  Mickey mouse

  And still the question goes unanswered: why not delete the Facebook group and restart it?

  This is getting more and more disturbing. People's lives are being ruined for the sake of someone not wanting to click a button.
• 

  Simon

  I felt Juan tried to be honest

  I agree, I think Juan did a good job answering questions honestly and openly which was what was needed but things took a bad turn and went south when Cedars got into denial mode and ultimately this frustrated and aggrevated people and just made everything worse and prolonged the issues. I know he blames 'us' for all of the AAWAs woes but the damage would not have been so great were it not for the type of reaction and response that we've just witnessed again.
• 

  Sic Semper Tyrannis

  I just got off the phone with my dad. Someone (he didn’t say who) in my JW family has screenshots, and he’s going to ‘let the brothers work this one out with me’. I’m off now. I have more pressing issues to deal with. I need to regroup and think about how I want to handle this. Thank you everyone for your concern. I trust you all will understand why I don’t want to get in the middle of this right now, as I have phone calls and emails to make, and bridges to put the fires out on.
• 

  Simon

  why not delete the Facebook group and restart it?

  I guess only Cedars can answer that and he refuses to answer (sorry, apparently all because of my potty mouth).

  Question to the other members of the AAWA: does anyone really know who and where Cedars really is or have 'we' been played here?

  I don't believe for one minute that it's OK for a US citizen to not put their real details on official corporate documents, never mind some anonymous person on the internet who seems concerned that people not even know which country they are in and I believe tries to give the impression that it's the UK.

  Please, for your own sake, make sure it is OK and take immediate action if it isn't.
• 

  Simon

  I just got off the phone with my dad. Someone (he didn’t say who) in my JW family has screenshots, and he’s going to ‘let the brothers work this one out with me’. I’m off now. I have more pressing issues to deal with. I need to regroup and think about how I want to handle this. Thank you everyone for your concern. I trust you all will understand why I don’t want to get in the middle of this right now, as I have phone calls and emails to make, and bridges to put the fires out on.

  Good luck, don't be afraid to 'lie' if you need to / tell them someone did it to you and you panicked, got confused ... whatever it takes to keep your family contacts.
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  144001

  If you're on Facebook, you've already compromised your privacy to some degree, while doing nothing more than simply signing up. Facebook posts are routinely used in court, against one party or another. Employers have used Facebook as the basis to discipline/fire employees. Facebook is selling your information to third parties, every day.

  As for those who were auto-added to AAWA, it does occur on FB groups. I was auto-added to a high school reunion page, by friends. No big deal, but a high school reunion page is a far cry from an AAWA page. If I had been added to such a group, without my permission, I would be livid. So I can certainly relate to the feelings that have been expressed on this site about AAWA.

  However, I'm unclear as to whether the administrators of AAWA auto-added people, or whether individuals, such as my friends that I referenced above, did the auto-adding in this instance. If it was FB friends, and not the AAWA administrators who auto-added people, then it's the FB friends who deserve the blame.

  Can someone clarify the facts re: who was responsible for the auto-adding of members to the AAWA FB page?
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  AnneB

  Never mind...