Regarding Elders Snooping On Facebook, MySpace & Other Sites

I was reading the thread of how an elder parent was snooping on his daughter's Facebook.

I believe that many JWs, not just elders probably snoop around to see what some Witnesses are doing, whether they be inactive, disassociated or active.

Do you think JWs "snoop" on the internet or if they have access to your computer, do you think they'll try to uncover something about you?

curriosity killed the cat.

I think many people snoop.

Especially if they think someones not looking and they have the opportunity.

Its true.  I know a sister who has a fake facebook account, and gets the young kids to accept her as a "friend", then she queals to their parents and the elders about what they all have on their facebook.

FYI - I don't know the name she goes by, but she told me she is a 24 year old man from Trinidad.

I don't 'do' any social networking sites, but I believe you can set options so just your 'friends' can see (eg, your pictures) ?

I don't know if they do for ex-witnesses, mainly because if you search for me you'll find my myspace page which tells you my wrestling name and if you search that the third thing you find is my Tough Questions site.  Which I'm sure would've came up in conversations by now LOL. 

For active witnesses I'm pretty sure they do because a bunch of JWs that I was in contact with had to delete their accounts.

I'm not inclined to call looking at publicly available information "snooping".

Facebook and MySpace both have security settings that allow you to block your information from anyone who is not a "Friend".  My Facebook and Myspace pages are both locked down so that a non-Friend will see no more than my name.

I recommend others do the same.  

Never post anything on Facebook or Myspace that you would not want published on the front page of every newspaper in the world.

I have heard there have been some judicial committees already based on Jw-photos that some elders have seen on facebook. These elders have probably thought like "wow this is a clever way to find out what those youths are really doing" because otherwise they would have no idea. But I guess many young Jws are now quite careful about what to put on facebook or who to choose as friends because they know they might be busted.

I don't Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or any of that jazz... so there's not much they can snoop about me.

I'm pretty careful on this site, only a select few here know my true identity (that I came from Planet Krypton wrapped in my baby's blanket when the Kent's found me...oops, I gave too much away).

But, I'm sure JWs do snoop on the Internet looking for juicy gossip on other dubs (or inactive dubs) who do Facebook et al...  back before the Internet, dubs snooped on each other and gossipped about each other.  The advent of the Internet will only make them more proficient at it.

I remember a few years ago when the My Space craze was going on.  The CO paid a visit and I received a call from one of the elders.  They were showing me my kids My Space pages.  They lectured me on how I shouldn't allow my kids to have access to such stuff if I wanted to progress....Sheesh.

So, yeah, they do look at these sites to dig up dirt on others.  

We had a local needs about using Bebo and the elder repeatedly called Bebo a "chatroom". This in itself resulted in much chortling by young JWs on....Bebo.

I know for sure some of them snoop. Some years back the elders wanted to talk to me but didn't tell say what about. We met one night at a coffee shop that had wireless internet access and they pulled up about 20 different myspace pages from kids in our hall as well as others. needless to say there were some pretty incriminating evidence on a number of teenagers. Girls had provacative pics of themselves and there was a lot of bad language used.

While looking through one page there was a picture of some friends and me rockin' out in our punk/metal band at graduation party we played. All I could think was "Oh Crap!". But they didn't seemed to be to bothered. One of those elders was a punk enthusiaist himself. At the hall they put all the teens in the front rows and gave a local needs talk about myspace and told parents to interrogate thier children to find out.

The reason why they involved me was because some of the individuals who had pages were coming out in my wedding. In the end half of the wedding party was not allowed to participate in the ceremony including my brother and sister in law (Friggin' Bastards).

I'm sure there could be a lot of incriminating "evidence" for the elders via computers.

Why not encourage these kids to "google" the elders and see what incriminating evidence they can get on them, such as lawsuits, unpaid bills, etc.?

St. Ann

For $$$ you can go on sites that will tell you every detail about them including if they've ever had a record. Now that could be veryyyyyyyy interestinggg.

OF COURSE they snoop!!  Snoop, pry, spy, probe, scrutinize, dig into, cross personal boundaries, commit espionage against and delve deeply into the lives of their fellow JWs - it's Theocratic Warfare, after all!!  To Arms!

Personally, I think it's because most of them don't have real lives...  But very destructive to those still inside and even more so to those slowly working their way out.

Wish there was a magic pill one could slip into someone's coffee or soft drink that would instantly awaken them from the cult-induced sleep.  One sociological study done in England stated that the single most significant factor that caused JWs to exit the religion was INDEPENDENT bible study.

Be sure to encourage all your JW friends and relatives to read the bible completely through, every year, like the WTBTS used to say!!  (Do they still say that?  Better still, in that case!  The WTBTS says "Read yer bible!")  Zid    

THE Organization is TRAINED to snoop on one another.

I  used to work with a young elder (now presiding overseer grand-senior-coordinator-of-the-body-of-elders)  who would snoop on Yahoo! personals allegedly looking for JW's.  I can remember how excited he was when he found the personal ad of sister in a neighboring hall, mentioning he would have to mention this to her elder body.

Later when I began to be suspected of apostasy he began Internet snooping on me, printing off page-after-page of my personal blog for evidence and to bring a JC investigation against me.

Know of another elder in Southern Illinois Congregation who boasted about going to the home of suspected homosexuals and demanding to comb through their personal computer looking for evidence.  As I remember it, one young man relented and they found gay pornography on his hard drive and DF'd him, the other youth wouldn't allow them to look, he too was df'd. 

I can't imagine having an elder demand to see my computer. If I showed him, I'd teach him things he'd wish he had never seen.

Today there's a lot of elder snooping threads.

So it's okay for the elders to go on the internet to websites other than the WTS website???

St. Ann