Posts by fizzywiglet

447

Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..

by OUTLAW in

good afternoon jwn... .

i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .

aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.

fizzywiglet

Not to make light but I just noticed they even have a dead person in the FB group.

Don't worry; Sweeney. She can always just leave the group if she doesn't agree with its mission statement.

447

Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..

by OUTLAW in

good afternoon jwn... .

i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .

aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.

fizzywiglet

LMAO. Cedars on the other AAWA thread:

"decisions are not made by me, but by the board. AAWA is a group effort. I have one vote on the board like every other board member."

Cedars on this thread:

"I won't post on this subject anymore. I've investigated people's concerns and found that no faders are at risk."

Well, I know *I* feel so much better that Cedars has investigated and decided that nobody is at risk.

Of course, he's decided this despite the fact that Juan Viejo admitted that WT apologists and people with no history of JW activism were part of those 1,000 force-added. So now, we know that whether the group is "secret" or not, a bunch of faders are in there with a bunch of WT apologists and JW elder moles who all got rolled up in it together, who now have access to all of their names and info. The kind of people who post on witnesswatchdog.blogspot.com and "out" apostates. We know this, it's not in dispute, Juan admitted it right here on page 2 of this thread. J_ _ _ _ B_ _ _ _ _ _ D_ _ _ _ _ _ had her name posted on Witness Watchdog and she was not happy about it, so she should be sensitive to privacy worries. And she chose to join JW activist groups which likely had moles; she wasn't even force-added.

What about faders who were force-added who are married to believing JWs? I know of at least one person who was force-added who is married to a JW wife. What if your JW spouse has access to your Facebook account? Many spouses do share access to social media accounts. You could just be some poor schmuck who got rolled up in the 1,000 auto-added people, and don't realize it, and then your JW husband/wife logs on and figures it out. In a group of 1,000 strangers, is AAWA really prepared to say that's not a possibility or even a probability? All of this "prove to me that damage is done" crap is besides the point. The point is that as a nonprofit human rights organization, you are supposed to prevent risk and damage in the first place.

People are still coming out of the woodwork who were force-added and haven't realized it yet, because Facebook doesn't send you an email notification. Noni is the latest; she didn't realize until yesterday, and only when she read about the snafu on JWN and went to go check. A post buried in your timeline telling people they are free to leave if they want to is simply not sufficient.

A friend of mine who was force-added contacted AAWA and received an email back from Juan Viejo yesterday which basically told her she should be just happy with leaving the group. He said that removing the 1,000 force-added people would be like "burning down a perfectly good house just because there was initially a flaw in the security alarm. We're not going to burn down our house." A very Watchtower analogy, actually. Oversimplified, false premise, and ignoring glaring flaws.

They just don't get it. Nobody's asking AAWA to "burn down their house"...they never bought that house to begin with! They're putting out this persecution narrative that is just false. You can have your group, but ethics require that you do it the right way. You don't get to keep those 1,000 force-added people and put even a few of them at risk, or even just inconvenience them by claiming them as "members" on a group they never agreed to sign up to. (They keep saying "we have over 1300 members!!!" to establish credibility, but that's not true. Whether their names can be seen publicly or not, 1,000 people never agreed to sign up to that group; they are not "members". It seems abundantly clear to almost everybody here that this is the point. AAWA didn't earn those members, they didn't do it the ethical (read: hard) way that the rest of us with groups did. But for them to do the right thing, they know that they'll lose bragging rights over the "viral phenomenon" they previously claimed they had started. Turned out that wasn't the case, and we all know it now.

One last thing...the issue of liability. Heading a nonprofit, legally incorporated organization means that you can be held liable, of course, for damage or potential damage. Interestingly, though he is so cavalier with the privacy of 1,000 people, Cedars has a death-grip on his own privacy and is fiercely protective of it. He has said multiple places that "John Cedars" is a pseudonym. So he's deep undercover (which is his own business), but the trouble comes in when he wants to head a nonprofit organization. If people are damaged by this fiasco and want to know who to hold accountable, how can they do that?

When others pointed out that Cedars uses his pseudonym on AAWA's official articles of incorporation paperwork, and an address which is not his own, but Richard Kelly's (scroll to the "articles of incorporation" box and click the button labeled "document number 04184930"...it's on page 2 of that document), that seemed to me like it couldn't possibly be legal. So I dropped a line to the Arizona Corporations Commission to see if corporate officers are allowed to use a pseudonym on the incorporation paperwork, which requests the real names and addresses of all officers/directors. The answer landed in my inbox this morning:

"It is a felony to misrepresent information on documents submitted to us. If you go to the first link below, click on the statute link on the left, click on the corporate statues and do a search under misrepresentation, you will find some matches. This includes ARS 10-202 (i) and I copied that part below.

I. Any person who executes or contributes information for a certificate of disclosure and who intentionally makes any untrue statement of material fact or withholds any material fact with regard to the information required in subsection D, paragraph 1 of this section is guilty of a class 6 felony."

Hm. Very, very interesting.

Is it clear yet that AAWA has no freaking clue what they are doing? This simply wasn't thought out at all, and they are not only putting people at risk and being heels about it, but they're also hurting themselves as an organization and destroying all credibility by cutting corners.

447

Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..

by OUTLAW in

good afternoon jwn... .

i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .

aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.

fizzywiglet

I'm not sure the question was so much about using a pseudonym in business, but whether it is legal to use one on official incorporation paperwork, which requires the full names and addresses of all corporate officers. And it doesn't seem like it would make sense for it to be legal to give a false name on this paperwork. These are the rules for incorporation in Arizona:

http://www.azleg.state.az.us/ars/10/03202.htm

Dunno, seems like for official government paperwork, they'd need to know all of the corporate officers' real names and addresses...know who to hold accountable if there were any issues.

447

Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..

by OUTLAW in

good afternoon jwn... .

i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .

aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.

fizzywiglet

Don't know if she posts here. But yes, she is the coordinator/representative I referred to earlier. She approached me on Cedars' behalf and told me she was working on a sooper-seekrit nonprofit that they wanted me to make a YouTube testimonial endorsing, but she couldn't give me any details about what I would be allegedly endorsing because it was soooo sooper-seekrit other than the usual vague/overexuberant "yeah, it's totally a big deal and totally gonna take down the Watchtower" (so, um, no details? No thanks). So she's been on board since the planning stages. She is the volunteer/representative Juan Viejo referred to. She is also the one who was defensive when Dagney and others confronted her about being added with consent. She is the one who said "What, are we supposed to PM 1,000 people and invite them? That's too much work!"

(And uh, yes. PM-ing 1,000 people and inviting them is exactly what she should have done. But no. She participated in and sanctioned, for the entire board's benefit, the force-add approach.)

And despite what others have said, it isn't only friends you can add to groups. It's friends of friends (mutual friends), too. And, Cedars/Juan Viejo claimed that AAWA group members who also had other group pages could and did force-add their own group members, too.

Just because I join, say, a group about dogs, doesn't mean I'd be OK with the administrator of a group about dogs then adding me to a different group that I didn't choose to join...What if it's a group I consider more militant? Or a group I don't agree with?

And I definitely wouldn't be OK with the second group refusing to address the situation and then just saying, "Well, it's OK. You can leave if you want to, but we're also going to just keep all of these force-added members who didn't realize they were force-added, who did not choose to be here, and not worry about their privacy...hopefully they'll never even realize that they were force-added, and we can keep them to pad our group count."

And again, let's not forget to stress...Juan has already admitted that there were suspected moles and apologists force-added to that group. They are still there. They have access to everybody's name. If someone chooses to join that group, then fine. They have taken the risk upon themselves. But Cedars thinks he can just make the decision for those 1,000 people and take the risk on their behalf. That. Is. Not. Right.

Edited to add, since I am again out of posts, in response to Dagney below:

Yeah, Dagney, I had remembered you telling me about the confrontation and I weren't sure whether you had participated. Earlier on the thread I said I thought you had also posted, but I wasn't sure and I knew you would correct me if I was wrong. So thanks! But yeah, point is, you did witness the confrontation and Julia's response before leaving the group.

447

Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..

by OUTLAW in

good afternoon jwn... .

i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .

aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.

fizzywiglet

Seconded, Malvinas and Dismissing Servant! (Yay, one of my posts opened up so I get one more in before my post limit is up, haha). I have met Juan personally. He's a good guy. I consider him a friend, along with one other person on the AAWA board. I think he's trying to be honest here, and he's a better calibre of person than what he's been handed to deal with.

I want to re-iterate this part of Juan's statement, from all the way back on page 2. Cedars is saying there is absolutely no evidence that any of the force-added people are still at risk because the group has been made secret again (after being made open):

* * *

"Among those who "joined" were several names that I did not recognize at all. But some I did and knew that they would not be expected to join a group like ours. There were others who were very evangelical and also some who I would consider to be Watchtower apologists who showed up on the list. Many others seemed to have no connection to JW activism or discussion whatsoever. I wondered why all of those types of persons would be joining our group.

Then I noticed as I scanned through the names that one person in particular seemed to be referring the majority of these unknowns. At that point I brought my concerns to the attention of the other advisors and the officers of AAWA. Their first reaction was that this was not necessarily a bad thing. After all, we welcomed support from every source and our doors were open to all. That is how I also felt some 12 hours before - but that morning I was literally panicked by the problem we were facing.

At that point Bo had to make a decision about what to do with our Facebook page and we all agreed to let him just go ahead and make it "open to all."

* * *

So: There you go. Absolutely no dispute; straight from the horse's mouth. People were force-added who were Watchtower apologists, moles, or not even ex-JW activists at all. Then they inexplicably OPENED UP THE GROUP for an indeterminate period (so yay! Anybody could join, open season for even more moles and apologists and ex-JW elders!) before making it secret again.

Those people are still in the group, with access to 1,300 names, at least 1,000 of which did not choose or consent to be there. AAWA hasn't done the single, easy thing that would protect those force-added (as well as the polite, ethical thing, because they want to keep their group count up. They know if they start over, without padding their numbers, it'll be nowhere near the "viral phenomenon" they were claiming).

When Cedars says there is no risk, he is lying. Pure and simple. And what's worse, he knows it.

447

Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..

by OUTLAW in

good afternoon jwn... .

i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .

aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.

fizzywiglet

Whether you`ve been here or not under another name,your still on my thread..

Telling me I`m barging in on my own thread,is friggin stupid..

No, I didn't say that. Please refrain from putting words in my mouth. I'm saying you barged into the issue and spoke on behalf of AAWA without having a clue what you were talking about (which has been clearly established).

Juan Viejo openly said there was AWAA members who made referels..

AWAA admits to screwing up,so thats no longer in Question..

There was a Big concern about a non AWAA member who outed people.

Thats what I`m addressing a,non AWAA member..We already know AWAA members screwed up..

They admited it..

Except, they really don't admit the full extent to which they screwed up. They downplayed their own members' involvement (it was "only" 50 people that AAWA force-added, which is both false and irrelevant).

People are asking WHO did the force-adding (they're not specifying AAWA or non-AAWA).

Anyway, again, all moot "admitting" that they screwed up if they're not willing to correct it. It's not enough to give the name of the outer or make a FB post saying "you can leave if you want to". People in that group are still at risk of outing. Everybody in that group needs to be notified of the situation and they need to start over and do it through the proper channels.

* * *

Edited to add, since my post limit is up for the day and Cedars is playing dumb:

I already DID address your question, Cedars. Also, you were not "first". I and many others have been making points 1, 2, and 3 for several days now, and you have ignored us and flat-out refused to address them.

As for accusations of "venom" and "hatred"...YAWN. Please. I wouldn't waste either on you. I'm not screaming "down with AAWA". I'm not in agreement with all your tenets, would never feel comfortable doing any volunteer or human-rights work on behalf of someone with your personality, and my personal opinion is the name is counterintuitive...but I really don't give a crap whether the group exists or not. You absolutely have a First-Amendment right to exist and spread your message.

The extent to which I care about your group is that I care about you rectifying the extremely high potential for outing and actual outing that you have already created and continue to protect/defend. The end. So cut the persecution complex; it's unflattering.

447

Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..

by OUTLAW in

good afternoon jwn... .

i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .

aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.

fizzywiglet

Cedars,

Address the rest of point 1 and the rest of points 2 and 3, please.

447

Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..

by OUTLAW in

good afternoon jwn... .

i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .

aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.

fizzywiglet

Cedars,

1) Well, it happened to Rebel8. Soooo I'm gonna say yeah, clearly it could happen. Not to mention, if you read what I posted, I've already said two or three times now that I had non-ex-JW Facebook friends who were not added to the group check my timeline before I left the group to see if the name showed up. They said YES. The name itself showed up ("Fizzywiglet has joined such-and-such group").

2) Even if it couldn't/shouldn't show up, it's unethical to force-add people. Your coordinator DID force-add people, she force-added a LOT of people, and it's become clear over the past several days that a huge chunk of those people had no idea they were force-added, were not notified by Facebook or did not see the notification, and are still members. Now that you are aware they were added without permission, you don't get to presume that they want to be a member unless they figure it out.

3) Since someone force-added 1,000 people, and now you're trying to say they could have been referred from other ex-JW FB groups, who's to say they didn't force-add people masquerading as ex-JWs, who they believed to be ex-JWs? We already know there are JWs who do that, start a mole FB account, join ex-JW FB boards, and collect apostate names, and then publish them on sites like "Apostate Watchdog". Now they're very possibly inside your "secret" group, and they can see names of 1,000 people who did not necessarily consent to having their name affiliated with that group. If an "out" ex-JW makes an informed decision to put their name on your group, secret or not, that is one thing. But it is not your place to decide that for them.

447

Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..

by OUTLAW in

good afternoon jwn... .

i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .

aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.

fizzywiglet

I'm aware that many of you are in full AAWA-bashing mode at the moment, but if any of you have a mind to be helpful I have a quick question.

I am trying to get to the bottom of the concerns being currently voiced about our facebook group, without being fully versed or experienced in facebook myself.

It has been brought to my attention that membership of our facebook group does not show up on the newsfeed of our members. Therefore, if anyone is a member of our group, even against their will, there is no way for a non-member (i.e. a Witness friend) to see that they are.

Of course, facebook pages are different - these show up on your facebook newsfeed, but nobody was force-added to AAWA's facebook page. In fact, you can't be "added" to it at all, you can only "like" it - and it is impossible to force someone to "like" something without their knowledge.

So my question is, if there are any calm heads prevailing on this thread who actually know how facebook works - can you prove that you can be a member of our group, mistakenly or otherwise, and for this to be visible to non-member friends?

For those who want to investigate in response to my question, our facebook group is called... "Association of Anti-Watchtower Activists (AAWA)"

I await your response.

Cedars

Ignoring the arrogant little jabs about people being "hot-headed" and "in bashing mode", it has been "brought to your attention" (multiple times) that the bolded statement above is incorrect.

As Jgnat posted just before you, there is a Facebook "page" which only has 257 "likes" which people cannot be auto-added to.

There is also the "secret group" (which Juan Viejo said they decided to make open, thereby increasing the likelihood of outing, and now you appear to have made secret again) here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/jwactivists/

This is the group I was force-added to. This is the group where your coordinator admitted that AAWA had force-added 1,000 people.

This is the group that outed Rebel8 and others. The title of this group showed up on MY timeline when I was force-added (I had non-ex-JW friends check and confirm it for me before leaving the group).

When I click on the link above, it tells me "Secret Group: You are unable to see the contents of this group because you are not a member." But I can still see the title of the group and this blurb about it:

" The Association of Anti-Watchtower Activists (AAWA) is an organization dedicated to raising awareness of the damaging in fluence of the Watch Tower Society through respectful and well-informed activism. AAWA is also committed to offering help and support to those who are mentally and emotionally afflicted by the Society’s teachings and practices in whatever ways it can.

AAWA's Mission Statement:

http://jwactivists.org/who-are-we/"

That is more than enough to damage a fader. Not to mention, nobody should be force-added to a page without their consent, whether they're an open apostate or not. It still doesn't mean that they agree with your group's mission or want to be a part of it. It doesn't mean that they should be counted as one of your members when a huge chunk of them still have no idea they were even added.

Anyway, you're still deflecting. You're ignoring the overwhelming point that AAWA force-added people without their consent, and that not only must stop immediately and in the future, but must be retroactively undone as far as possible. You continue to refuse to respond to the solution most people seem to agree on: shut down the page and start over. The right way. Inviting people instead of force-adding them and assuming they want to stay unless they leave.

As far as "language", do you have a problem with Outlaw saying s***? Or are you only nitpicking on people who hold you responsible for AAWA's actions?

447

Problems with the "Bogus AWAA Fan Page"..

by OUTLAW in

good afternoon jwn... .

i`ve spent the morning and part of my afternoon... getting to the bottom of... why names were added to the awaa fan page... it`s a dangerous thing to happen in our world... faders can be outed,we can lose,family,friends... the results can be an absolute disaster... .

aawa "did not" create the facebook awaa fan page.

fizzywiglet

As I already said, Outlaw, I used to be here before under another name. For several years. And before I signed up, I lurked for a couple more years. Since I was 18. For over 10 years, myself. I don't post here really anymore, but this upset me enough to post about, because it's WRONG and people I know were affected - I'm a loyal friend and I'm both pissed off on their behalf as well as being upset that any group would be so rude and presumptuous as to assume I was willing to be a member, presume I agreed with their tenets, and force-add me. And, say, Dagney has been around on these boards since waaaay back when when it was JWD (also under a previous name, I think), so gee, maybe she should pull rank on you if you wanna play that game (except she's far classier than that, so she would never stoop to derailing). And so what? It's completely irrelevant how long I have been here...nice though, trying to deflect and undermine credibility when you get called out.

And yep, I'm on your thread, correcting your OP, which is simply not true.

As you say, you're not part of AAWA, but that didn't stop you from speaking on their behalf in bold, 20-point font. Whether you meant to or not, you've perpetuated a untrue story and you haven't apologized for or retracted it. That's the long and short of it, no amount of deflecting will change that.

As for "ooh, without this thread, the true story would never have come out"...FALSE (and hey, way to spin it into a little self-glorification). It's just been a rehash of the discussion that has been going on for days on the "AAWA is here" thread. Several of us (as Black Sheep pointed out) brought this stuff to light and proposed solutions days ago. They just kept getting buried under false narratives about "bogus identity theft" groups.

You're still perpetuating a false narrative even in the above post, when you say "Now can anyone find out which non-AAWA member outed all those people?".

Again:

It was an AAWA member. I know her name. Dagney knows her name. Several other people here also already know her name. The AAWA corporate officers know her name full well. She admitted that AAWA force-added around 1,000 people. She did this before 4/7/13, when there was allegedly some additional AAWA group member (who was not in a volunteer/coordinator/representative position, but an AAWA group member nonetheless) who entered the scene. AAWA advocated the force-add approach. They justified the force-add approach. AAWA did not take into account the proper settings to prevent the force-add approach. Their representative touted the force-add approach as the only logical way to get members because it was just toooooo muuuuuuch wooooooork going through proper channels. Their board members stayed silent when she said this. They ignored the problem for days, hoping it would get buried. The majority of the damage was done by an AAWA coordinator. Everything took place on AAWA's official page, even if there was a non-representative who got overenthusiastic on 4/7. AAWA is 100% responsible for this.