According to the Register, the Church of Scientology is pushing for Australia "to make it illegal to incite hatred against religious groups: and they are also looking for government to strip away anonymity from anyone behind such activity online."
The Church insists that this is necessary for proper prosecution of those who have been harassing them for months, both through a variety of anonymous websites but also through clearly illegal actions such as bomb threats and vandalism.
The protest group Anonymous has always been very upfront with the fact that they remain anonymous because of the Church's history of retaliation, which for a time was official policy and continues to be acted upon in all but name, as reported by countless protesters, ex-members and even journalists.
I will say I have a lot of issues with anonymous web presenses. I don't think it should be illegal, but I take anonymous sources far less seriously than non-anonymous ones. It's about investigating sources, and it's about feeling strong enough about a subject to put your name to it. On the flipside, however, when there has been a clear pattern of years of harassment of opponents, anonymity seems a logical choice.
Hey, why don’t we reveal the identities of people in the Witness Protection Program, too!? I’m sure they also don’t feel strong enough about something to put their name on it, amirite?
“anonymous sources far less seriously than non-anonymous ones”
Non-anonymous sources can lie just as well as anonymous ones, and sometimes they can lie better due to people like you putting more trust in them. People need to take responsibility and start judging information on merits rather than on their opinion of the source.
It annoys me that people keep quoting the organisations claims of bomb-threats etc. without pointing out that they’ve [CoS] yet to prove that there’s even been one, let alone multiple threats against them.
Remember, the only video threat that has been made was already shown to be made BY the CofS. How can you take a group who falsifies threats so frequently so seriously when they’ve already been caught red-handed?
With Scientology it’s a case of “the boy who cried wolf” no one takes them seriously anymore. Their days are numbered!
I am an Austrailian and agree to a point with (oh this is scary) the CofS. It should be illeagal to single someone or group out and incite hatered against them. But it should not be limited to religious groups it should also include mindless UFO Cults aswell.
Illeagle to insite hatred That seems to be what organised religion does best nowadays.
Any opinion should be based on the merrits of that opinion not the person saying it and as for the CofS saying they get death threats against them THEN PROVE IT!
Anon has safety in numbers. And it’s a hydra-headed thing, Scientology can catch and prosecute them all they want, there’ll always be more anons popping up. I hope Australia doesn’t bow to Co$ here. Not only because Co$ should not have that kind of influence but also because theres been a disturbing trend against anonymity online lately, and I think it’s something more beneficial than harmful to internet society.