A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | CH | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
| Project Chanology | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Scientology and the Internet and Anonymous on the internet | |||
 Protesters in Guy Fawkes masks outside a Scientology center at the February 10, 2008, Project Chanology protest | |||
| Date | January 16, 2008[1] - c. 2010 | ||
| Methods | Internet vigilantism, real world protests | ||
| Parties | |||
| Lead figures | |||
Non-centralized leadership | |||
| Number | |||
| around 6,000 to 8,300 real life protestors at peak[2] | |||
Project Chanology (also called Operation Chanology)[3] was a protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by members of Anonymous, a leaderless Internet-based group. "Chanology" is a combination of "4chan" and "Scientology". The project was started in response to the Church of Scientology's attempts to remove material from a highly publicized interview with Scientologist Tom Cruise from the Internet in January 2008.
The project was publicly launched in the form of a video posted to YouTube, "Message to Scientology", on January 21, 2008. The video states that Anonymous views Scientology's actions as Internet censorship, and asserts the group's intent to "expel the church from the Internet". This was followed by distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), and soon after, black faxes, prank calls, and other measures intended to disrupt the Church of Scientology's operations. In February 2008, the focus of the protest shifted to legal methods, including nonviolent protests and an attempt to get the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the Church of Scientology's tax-exempt status in the United States.
Reactions from the Church of Scientology regarding the protesters' actions have varied. Initially, one spokesperson stated that members of the group "have got some wrong information" about Scientology.[4] Another referred to the group as a group of "computer geeks".[5] Later, the Church of Scientology started referring to Anonymous as "cyberterrorists" perpetrating "religious hate crimes" against the church.
Detractors of Scientology have also criticized the actions of Project Chanology, asserting that they merely provide the Church of Scientology with the opportunity to "play the religious persecution card".[6] Other critics such as Mark Bunker and Tory Christman initially questioned the legality of Project Chanology's methods,[7] but have since spoken out in support of the project as it shifted towards nonviolent protests and other legal methods.
Etymology
The word "Chanology" is a portmanteau of 4chan (the site where the project originated) and "Scientology."[8][9]
Background
The Church of Scientology has a history of conflict with groups on the Internet. In 1995, attorneys for the Church of Scientology attempted to get the newsgroup alt.religion.scientology (a.r.s.) removed from Usenet.[10] This attempt backfired and generated a significant amount of press for a.r.s. The conflict with a.r.s led the hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow to declare war on the Church of Scientology.[10] The Church of Scientology mounted a 10-year legal campaign against Dutch writer Karin Spaink and several Internet service providers after Spaink and others posted documents alleged to be secret teachings of the organization. The Church of Scientology's efforts ended in a legal defeat in a Dutch court in 2005.[11] This series of events is often referred to as "Scientology versus the Internet".[10]
Tom Cruise video
On January 14, 2008, a video produced by the Church of Scientology featuring an interview with the actor Tom Cruise was posted on YouTube.[12] In the video, music from Cruise's Mission: Impossible films plays in the background, and Cruise makes various statements, including saying that Scientologists are the only people who can help after a car accident and that Scientologists are the authority on getting addicts off drugs.[13][14] According to The Times, Cruise can be seen in the video "extolling the virtues of Scientology".[15] The Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph characterized Cruise as "manic-looking", "gush about his love for Scientology".[16]
The Church of Scientology asserted that the video material was "pirated and edited" and taken from a three-hour video produced for members of Scientology.[14][17] YouTube removed the Cruise video from their site under threat of litigation.[18] The website Gawker did not take down their copy of the Tom Cruise video, and other sites have posted the entire video.[3][18] Lawyers for the Church of Scientology wrote to Gawker requesting the removal of the video, but Nick Denton of Gawker stated: "It's newsworthy and we will not be removing it."[19]
Formation
Project Chanology was formulated by users of the English-speaking imageboards 711chan.org and 4chan, the associated partyvan.info wiki, and several Internet Relay Chat channels, all part of a group collectively known as Anonymous, on January 16, 2008, after the Church of Scientology issued a copyright violation claim against YouTube for hosting material from the Cruise video.[1][20][21][22] The effort against Scientology has also been referred to by group members as "Operation Chanology".[3] A webpage called "Project Chanology", part of a larger wiki, is maintained by Anonymous and chronicles planned, ongoing and completed actions by project participants.[20][23][24] The website includes a list of suggested guerrilla tactics to use against the Church of Scientology.[23] Members use other websites as well to coordinate action, including Encyclopedia Dramatica[25] and the social networking site Facebook, where two groups associated with the movement had 3,500 members as of February 4, 2008.[11] A member of Anonymous told the Los Angeles Times that, as of February 4, 2008, the group consisted of "a loose confederation of about 9,000 people" who post anonymously on the Internet.[26] A security analyst told The Age that the number of people participating anonymously in Project Chanology could number in the thousands: "You can't pin it on a person or a group of people. You've thousands of people engaged to do anything they can against Scientology."[27]
Members of Project Chanology say their main goal is "to enlighten the Church of Scientology (CoS) by any means necessary."[28] Their website states: "This will be a game of mental warfare. It will require our talkers, not our hackers. It will require our dedicated Anon across the world to do their part."[29] Project Chanology's stated goals include the complete removal of the Church of Scientology's presence from the Internet and to "save people from Scientology by reversing the brainwashing".[10][30] Project Chanology participants plan to join the Church of Scientology posing as interested members in order to infiltrate the organization.[7]
Andrea Seabrook of National Public Radio's All Things Considered reported Anonymous was previously known for "technologically sophisticated pranks" such as spamming chat rooms online and "ordering dozens of pizzas for people they don't like".[31] Ryan Singel of Wired appeared on the program on January 27, 2008, and told Seabrook that members of Anonymous were motivated by "the tactics the Church of Scientology uses to control information about itself" rather than the "controversial nature of Scientology itself".[31]
Activities
Internet activities
Project Chanology began its campaign by organizing and delivering a series of denial-of-service attacks against Scientology websites and flooding Scientology centers with prank calls and black faxes.[4] The group was successful in taking down local and global Scientology websites intermittently from January 18, 2008, until at least January 25, 2008.[15][18][32] Anonymous had early success rendering major Scientology websites inaccessible and leaking documents allegedly stolen from Scientology computers. This resulted in a large amount of coverage on social bookmarking websites.[5][28]
The denial-of-service attacks on Scientology.org flooded the site with 220 megabits of traffic, a mid-range attack.[6][33] Speaking with SCMagazineUS.com, a security strategist for Top Layer Networks, Ken Pappas said that he thought that botnets were involved in the Anonymous operation: "There are circles out there where you could take ownership of the bot machines that are already owned and launch a simultaneous attack against like the church from 50,000 PCs, all at the same time".[32]
In response to the attacks, on January 21, 2008, the Scientology.org site was moved to Prolexic Technologies, a company specializing in safeguarding web sites from denial-of-service attacks.[6][33] Attacks against the site increased, and CNET News reported that "a major assault" took place at 6 p.m. EST on January 24, 2008.[33] Anonymous escalated the attack on Scientology on January 25, 2008,[24] and on January 25, 2008, the Church of Scientology's official website remained inaccessible.[32]
On January 21, 2008, Anonymous announced its goals and intentions via a video posted to YouTube entitled "Message to Scientology", and a press release declaring "War on Scientology", against both the Church of Scientology and the Religious Technology Center.[5][22][34] In the press release, the group stated that the attacks against the Church of Scientology would continue in order to protect freedom of speech and to end what they characterized as the financial exploitation of church members.[23]
The Tom Cruise video is referred to specifically at the start of the Anonymous YouTube video posting, and is characterized as a "propaganda video".[13][35] The video utilizes a synthesized voice and shows floating cloud images using a time lapse method as the speaker addresses the leaders of Scientology directly: "We shall proceed to expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form..."[36] The video goes on to state: "We recognize you as serious opponents, and do not expect our campaign to be completed in a short time frame. However, you will not prevail forever against the angry masses of the body politic. Your choice of methods, your hypocrisy, and the general artlessness of your organization have sounded its death knell. You have nowhere to hide because we are everywhere... We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."[34] By January 25, 2008, only four days after its release, the video had been viewed 800,000 times, and by February 8, 2008, had been viewed over 2 million times.[5][7][11][37] Author Warren Ellis called the video "creepy in and of itself" and a "manifesto, declaration of war, sharp political film".[38]
In a different video posted to YouTube, Anonymous addresses news organizations covering the conflict and criticizes media reporting of the incident.[24] In the video, Anonymous criticizes the media specifically for not mentioning objections by the group to certain controversial aspects of the history of the Church of Scientology, and cited past incidents including the death of Lisa McPherson: "We find it interesting that you did not mention the other objections in your news reporting. The stifling and punishment of dissent within the totalitarian organization of Scientology. The numerous, alleged human rights violations. Such as the treatment and events that led to the deaths of victims of the cult such as Lisa McPherson."[24] Lisa McPherson was a Scientologist who died in 1995 under controversial circumstances. The Church of Scientology was held responsible and initially faced felony charges in her death. The charges were later dropped and a civil suit brought by McPherson's family was settled in 2004.[24] This second video was removed on January 25, 2008, YouTube citing a "terms of use violation".[6] Organizers of the February 10, 2008, Project Chanology protests against the Church of Scientology told the St. Petersburg Times the event was timed to coincide with the birthday of Lisa McPherson.[37]
In addition to DDoS attacks against Church of Scientology websites, Anonymous also organized a campaign on one of their websites to "begin bumping Digg", referring to an attempt to drive up Scientology-related links on the website Digg.com.[39] On January 25, 2008, eight of the top ten stories on Digg.com were about either Scientology-related controversies or Anonymous and attempts to expose Scientology.[6] Digg CEO Jay Adelson told PC World that Anonymous had not manipulated the site's algorithm system to prevent artificial poll results, stating: "They must have done a very good job of bringing in a diverse set of interests ... It just happened to hit a nerve that the Digg community was interested in."[39] Adelson said two other instances which similarly have dominated the Digg main page in the past were the Virginia Tech Massacre in the aftermath of the incident and the "7/7" London bombings in 2005. Adelson commented on the popularity of Scientology theme within the Digg community: "In the history of Digg, there's no question that the topic of Scientology has been of great interest to the community ... I can't explain why."[39]
On January 29, 2008, Jason Lee Miller of WebProNews reported that a Google bomb technique had been used to make the Scientology.org main website the first result in a Google search for "dangerous cult".[40] Miller wrote that Anonymous was behind the Google bomb, and that they had also tried to bump Scientology up as the first result in Google searches for "brainwashing cult", and to make the Xenu.net website first result in searches for "scientology".[41] Rob Garner of MediaPost Publications wrote: "The Church of Scientology continues to be the target of a group called Anonymous, which is using Google bombs and YouTube as its tools of choice."[42]
In a February 4, 2008, article, Scientology spokeswoman Karin Pouw told the Los Angeles Times that Church of Scientology's websites "have been and are online."[26] Danny McPherson, chief research officer at Arbor Networks, claimed 500 denial-of-service attacks had been observed on the Scientology site in the week prior to February 4, some of which were strong enough to bring the website down.[26] Calling Anonymous a "motley crew of internet troublemakers", Wired blogger Ryan Singel said that, while attempting to bypass the Prolexic servers protecting the Church of Scientology website, users of a misconfigured DDoS tool inadvertently and briefly had targeted the Etty Hillesum Lyceum, a Dutch secondary school in Deventer.[43][44] Another hacking group associated with the project, calling themselves the "g00ns", mistakenly targeted a 59-year-old man from Stockton, California. They posted his home telephone number, address and his wife's Social Security number online for other people to target. They believed that he was behind counter-attacks against Project Chanology-related websites by the Regime, a counter-hack group who crashed one of the Project Chanology planning websites. The group allegedly attempted to gain personal information on people involved in Project Chanology to turn that information over to the Church of Scientology. After discovering they had wrongly targeted the couple, one of the members of the g00ns group called and apologized.[45][46]
Protests planned
A new video entitled "Call to Action" appeared on YouTube on January 28, 2008, calling for protests outside Church of Scientology centers on February 10, 2008.[47][48] As with the previous videos, the two-minute video used a synthesized computer voice and featured stock footage of clouds and sky.[48] The video was accompanied by a text transcript with British English spelling. The video denied that the group was composed of "super hackers", stating: "Contrary to the assumptions of the media, Anonymous is not 'a group of super hackers.' ... Anonymous is everyone and everywhere. We have no leaders, no single entity directing us."[47][48] The video said that Project Chanology participants include "individuals from all walks of life ... united by an awareness that someone must do the right thing."[47] Specific controversies involving the CoS were cited in the video as the explanation for actions by Anonymous.[47]
In an email to CNET News, Anonymous stated that coordinated activities were planned for February 10, 2008, in many major cities around the world.[48] Anonymous hoped to use "real world" protests to rally public opinion to their cause.[49] According to the Associated Press, the protests were meant to draw attention to what the group refers to as a "vast money-making scheme under the guise of 'religion'".[46] By January 30, 2008, 170 protests had been planned outside Church of Scientology centers worldwide.[50] A video posted to YouTube called "Code of Conduct" outlined twenty-two rules to follow when protesting, and urged protestors to remain peaceful.[51]
February 2008
February 2
On February 2, 2008, 150 people gathered outside a Church of Scientology center in Orlando, Florida to protest the organization's practices.[7][11][52][53] Small protests were also held in Santa Barbara, California (during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival),[54] and Manchester, England.[11][55] Protesters in Orlando carried signs with messages "Knowledge is Free" and "Honk if you hate Scientology".[53] According to WKMG-TV, the protesters called the Church of Scientology a "dangerous cult" and said the organization is responsible for crimes and deaths.[52] The Orlando Sentinel reported that the protest was "part of a worldwide campaign by a group that calls itself Anonymous", and an unnamed organizer who spoke to the paper stated that the group was protesting "a gross violation of the right to see free church material", referring to the Tom Cruise video that was pulled from YouTube.[53]
Protesters at the demonstration wore masks, and said they were attempting to inform the public about what they believed to be "restrictions of free speech and profiteering through pyramid schemes" by the Church of Scientology.[54] They asserted they were not protesting the doctrine of Scientology, but rather alleged actions of individual Scientologists.[54] One protester stated that he had created a Facebook group to organize the protest, explaining "It started online with a group called Anonymous ... They got upset with Scientology because the church hides important documents that are supposed to be released to the public."[54]
February 10
On February 10, 2008, about 7,000 people protested in at least 100 cities worldwide.[12][56][57] Within 24 hours of the first protest, a search for "Scientology" and "protest" on Google Blog Search returned more than 4,000 results and more than 2,000 pictures on the image-sharing site Flickr.[57] Cities with turnouts of one hundred or more protesters included Adelaide,[58] Melbourne,[59] and Sydney,[60] Australia; Toronto, Canada;[61] London, England;[62] Dublin, Ireland;[63] and Austin,[64] Dallas,[65] Boston,[66] Clearwater,[67] and New York City,[62] United States.
150 people protested at the Church of Scientology building in Sydney, Australia, carrying signs and wearing costumes.[60] Participants were masked to maintain their anonymity and avoid possible retaliation from the Church of Scientology. Protesters chanted "Church on the left, cult on the right" (in reference to the Church that was beside the Church of Scientology building), "Religion is free" and "We want Xenu".[60] Scientology staff locked down the building and set up a camera to record the event.[60] After the protest in Sydney, a surge in online Internet traffic due to individuals attempting to view pictures from the protest crashed hundreds of websites when a server was overloaded.[57] The Sydney protest was one of the first worldwide, and after the first images of the protest went online a surge in traffic drove the hosting company's bandwidth usage up by 900 percent.[57] The hosting company Digitalis temporarily prevented access to hundreds of its clients' sites, and customer support representative Denis Kukic said the surge was unexpected: "We had no advance notice that there was going to be a sudden surge of traffic or that there would be more than 100 times the average traffic that this customer's website normally consumes."[57]
Masked protesters in Seattle, Washington, United States congregated in front of the Church of Scientology of Washington.[68] Protesters were quoted as saying, "We believe in total freedom of belief. We have nothing against the people of Scientology, however the Church of Scientology has committed crimes. They're vehemently anti-opposition. Anyone who opposes them, must go down."[68] A protester in Santa Barbara emphasized that their opposition was against the organization, not the belief system, and that they supported the Scientology split-off group known as the Free Zone.[69] Protesters turned out in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania despite unusually cold weather. The masked crowd consisted mainly of college students, including some who had travelled from as far as Penn State University.[70]
Protesters in Boston,[71] Los Angeles,[72] Pittsburgh,[70] Toronto,[73][74] Edinburgh,[75] London,[76] and other cities worldwide, wore Guy Fawkes masks modeled after the 2005 film V for Vendetta.[77] Guy Fawkes was an English Catholic executed for a 1605 attempt to destroy the House of Lords.[71] In V for Vendetta, a rebel against a near-future fascist regime uses the mask in his public appearances and distributes many of its copies to the population to enable mass protests.[71] The Boston Globe characterized usage of the Guy Fawkes masks as "an allusion to the British insurgent and a film depicting an antigovernment movement".[71] Aaron Tavena of College Times wrote that the Guy Fawkes masks provided a "dramatic effect" to the protests, and Nick Jamison of The Retriever Weekly wrote: "During the February 10 protests, Anonymous was informative, Anonymous was peaceful, and Anonymous was effective. After seeing all of the pictures from the 10th with everyone in disguise, many sporting Guy Fawkes masks, I wanted to be a part of that."[78][79] Scott Stewart of University of Nebraska at Omaha's The Gateway wrote: "Many participants sported Guy Fawkes masks to draw attention both to their identity as Anonymous and the Church of Scientology's abuse of litigation and coercion to suppress anti-Scientology viewpoints."[80]
The Internet meme Rickroll, where a link is given to a seemingly relevant website only to be directed to a music video of singer Rick Astley's pop single "Never Gonna Give You Up", has been used as a theme in the protests against Scientology.[81][82] At February 10 protests in New York, Washington, D.C., London and Seattle, protesters played the song through boomboxes and shouted the phrase "Never gonna let you down!", in what The Guardian called "a live rick-rolling of the Church of Scientology".[83] In response to a website created by Scientologists showing an anti-Anonymous video, Project Chanology participants created a website with a similar domain name with a video displaying the music video to "Never Gonna Give You Up".[83] In a March 2008 interview, Astley said that he found the rickrolling of Scientology to be "hilarious"; he also said that he will not try to capitalize on the rickroll phenomenon with a new recording or remix of his own, but that he'd be happy to have other artists remix it.[84][85]
Following the protests, there were reports that YouTube was freezing the view counts on videos criticizing Scientology, including clips from the protests themselves, potentially preventing them from being displayed on YouTube's front page.[86] Similarly, the original "Message to Scientology" video had received nearly 2.5 million views and yet failed to be featured as a "most-watched".[86] The net neutrality activist group movieLOL strongly criticized YouTube for a "display of the decay of internet freedom".[87] YouTube's official response stated: "There was an issue with video view counts not increasing that has now been resolved. The correct number of views should be displayed in the next 24 hours. Thanks for your patience."[87]
Jonathan Holmes, the presenter of the Australian watchdog program Media Watch, reported on two cases of media censorship of the protests. News.com.au pixelated a poster carried by a protester which was revealed, through a Today Tonight segment, to have displayed the word "CULT". The Advertiser erased Tom Cruise's name from a protest placard, rendering the placard's message meaningless, without informing its readers. The Advertiser's editor, Melvin Mansell, stated that the alteration had "slipped by" and that he was opposed to the publication of doctored photographs.[88]
| City | State | Country | Protesters | Min | Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adelaide | South Australia | Australia | 150[58][89] | 150 | 150 |
| Amsterdam | Netherlands | N/A,[90] 50[91] | 50 | 50 | |
| Anchorage | Alaska | United States | 8[92] | 8 | 8 |
| Atlanta | Georgia | United States | 100 | 50 | 50 |
| Austin | Texas | United States | N/A,[93][94] 200[95] | 200 | 200 |
| Berlin | Germany | N/A,[96] 30[97] | 30 | 30 | |
| Birmingham | England | 150N/A[98] | 50 | 150 | |
| Boston | Massachusetts | United States | 50,[99] 100,[100][101] 200[102] | 50 | 200 |
| Brussels | Belgium | N/A,[103] 20–30[104][105] | 20 | 30 | |
| Buffalo | New York | United States | N/A,[106] 25[107] | 25 | 25 |
| Champaign | Illinois | United States | N/A[108] | ||
| Charlotte | North Carolina | United States | N/A[109] | ||
| Chicago | Illinois | United States | N/A[110] | ||
| Clearwater | Florida | United States | N/A,[111] 100,[112] 180,[67]
200[113][114][115] |
100 | 200 |
| Columbus | Ohio | United States | 100[116] | 100 | 100 |
| Dallas | Texas | United States | 100[117] | 100 | 100 |
| Dublin | Republic of Ireland | 100[118] | 100 | 100 | |
| Edinburgh | Scotland | 30,[119] 150[120] | 30 | 150 | |
| Edmonton | Alberta | Canada | 36[121] | 36 | 36 |
| Farmington Hills | Michigan | United States | N/A,[122] 30–100[123] | 30 | 100 |
| Honolulu | Hawaii | United States | N/A[124] | ||
| Houston | Texas | United States | N/A[125][126][93] | ||
| Kitchener | Ontario | Canada | 20[127] | 20 | 20 |
| London | England | 200,[128] 300,[129] 500,[130][115] 500–1000[131] | 200 | 1000 | |
| Los Angeles | California | United States | N/A,[132][133][134][135] 500[136][115] | 500 | 500 |
| Melbourne | Victoria | Australia | 200[89] | 200 | 200 |
| Milwaukee | Wisconsin | United States | N/A[137] | ||
| Montreal | Quebec | Canada | N/A,[138] 50[139] | 50 | 50 |
| New Haven | Connecticut | United States | 25[140] | 25 | 25 |
| New York City | New York | United States | 200–300[130] | 200 | 300 |
| Orlando | Florida | United States | N/A[141] | ||
| Oslo | Norway | 30–50,[142] 40–50[143] | 30 | 50 | |
| Ottawa | Ontario | Canada | N/A,[144] 12[145] | 12 | 12 |
| Philadelphia | Pennsylvania | United States | N/A,[146] 150[147] | 150 | 150 |
| Phoenix | Arizona | United States | N/A,[148] 40,[149] 60[150][151][152] | 40 | 60 |
| Pittsburgh | Pennsylvania | United States | 40–50[153] | 40 | 50 |
| Plymouth | England | 12[154] | 12 | 12 | |
| Portland | Oregon | United States | N/A[155][156][157] | ||
| Salt Lake City | Utah | United States | N/A[158] | Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Project_Chanology