Mark Pack

Wikipedia bans Church of Scientology

By | Sat 30th May 2009 - 10:20 am

That’s the headline from The Register:

In an unprecedented effort to crack down on self-serving edits, the Wikipedia supreme court has banned contributions from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology and its associates.

Closing out the longest-running court case in Wikiland history, the site’s Arbitration Committee voted 10 to 0 (with one abstention) in favor of the move, which takes effect immediately…

Some have argued that those editing from Scientology IPs may be doing so without instruction from the Church hierarchy. But a former member of Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs – a department officially responsible “for directing and coordinating all legal matters affecting the Church” – says the Office has organized massive efforts to remove Scientology-related materials and criticism from the web.

“The guys I worked with posted every day all day,” Tory Christman tells The Reg. “It was like a machine. I worked with someone who used five separate computers, five separate anonymous identities…to refute any facts from the internet about the Church of Scientology.”

Christman left the Church in 2000, before Wikipedia was created.

This is the fourth Scientology-related Wikicourtcase in as many years, and in addition to an outright ban on Scientology IPs, the court has barred a host of anti-Scientology editors from editing topics related to the Church.

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This entry was posted in News and Online politics.
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4 Comments

  • RichardJ 30th May '09 - 10:45am

    These people really can’t take criticism can they?

    You don’t see the Vatican masterminding an operation to edit Wikipedia.

  • Dave Page 30th May '09 - 1:03pm

    Matt, you mean by posting links like http://www.xenu.net/roland-intro.html as an example?

  • Dan 1st Jun '09 - 3:56pm

    Should Scientologists be allowed to use lawyers for their defense in their trial in France or would this be unfair?
    I’m a Scientologist and I’m mailing off a donation to my church this morning because I support it.

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