Editing Alt.religion.scientology (section)

== History ==

{{See also|Scientology versus the internet}}
On July 17, 1991,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/alt/alt.religion.scientology.gz|title=official logs from the Internet Software Consortium}}</ref> the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup was created by Scientology-critic Scott Charles Goehring after a discussion with his then girlfriend and a third party. Goehring describes starting the newsgroup "because I felt Usenet needed a place to disseminate the truth about this half-assed religion" and in part as a joke.{{r|alt.scientology.war}}{{r|cusack2012|page=306}}<!--''[[Newsday]]'' inaccurately reported that Goehring started the newsgroup to demonstrate the behaviour of Scientologists to his girlfriend.<ref>''Newsday'', October 10, 1995</ref>-->

The original Usenet ''[[newgroup message]]'' used to create the newsgroup was formatted in a manner to disguise the actual identity of the poster. A bogus email address, "miscaviage@flag.sea.org" (a misspelling of "[[David Miscavige]]", the leader of Scientology), was inserted into the newsgroup creation message.{{r|alt.scientology.war}} Because of this, persons speaking in favor of Scientology frequently claim that "a forgery" was used to create the newsgroup. Scientology has used this argument in its requests to have the entire newsgroup removed from Usenet, but this argument has been nearly unanimously rejected by system administrators and ISPs alike.{{r|alt.scientology.war}}

ARS was a popular online forum in the 1990s, and at the time was the largest organized cult opposition. The Church of Scientology tried everything it could to shut down the group, but failed. In the early 2000s, ARS became available through [[Google Groups]] with their acquisition of Deja News, and as of 2024 ARS was still available online as an archive.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://groups.google.com/g/alt.religion.scientology |title=alt.religion.scientology |website=Google Groups |access-date=July 5, 2024}}</ref>{{r|alt.scientology.war}}

In the mid-2000s, a proliferation of new websites, blogs, and [[internet forum]]s made ARS functionally obsolete. The persistence of ARS showed that online groups could survive attempts at deletion, accommodate anonymous participation that could not be silenced, and equip users with a platform for the release of documents. ARS "provided the first proof that 'leaderless resistance' organizations could have an impact on Scientology".{{r|reasoned.life}}

Additionally, attempts to disrupt ARS simply added to the anti-Scientology movement additional groups dedicated to "upholding truth, transparency, freedom of information, and other lofty ideological goals".{{r|stryker|p=240}}