The Psychological Dynamics of Message Boards

[aron]

Originally Posted by Ohio

"All the brothers are one, except for TC." The message was simple -- one rogue brother in the Recovery, who must be dealt with, nothing more. Everybody else is doing just fine.

This [kind of message] is the result of LSM's long term information control. They are by design the only approved source of information to all the faithful members in the Recovery. Their spin becomes "the truth." The internet has ended that, by providing a means to communicate to one another.

I have a similar testimony. I was out of contact with this group for a number of years, and when I encountered one of my old friends in the LC, and asked, "What's new?", I was told, and I quote, "Titus Chu rebelled". Same kind of information control pervading the ranks. Everything else is hunky dory, we are all happy here in LC-land, except that bad old Titus Chu up and rebelled on us.

Well, back in the day, that's the same spin I heard about John So and John Ingalls and so forth. When I was deep within the LC "information fold", I got the FPR and that was the source of all my information on the "turmoil". The mere suggestion that there might be another side of the story worth hearing was never broached.

That is one of the reasons I feel rather tolerant, occasionally even magnanimous, toward all the posters on the LC-related forums. Anything is a step up from that kind of information control. Any poster, no matter how zany, is an improvement from the Big Brother Truth Machine. I vastly prefer the "free market" exchange of ideas over the totalitarian "only LSM-approved materials/thoughts/information can be disseminated" reign of error.