The Church of Scientology has allegedly been using Craigslist to hook new members–likely with promises of spiritual cleansing and house calls from Kirstie Alley–and hacker collective Anonymous is fighting back with counter-ads.
A tipster told Business Insider that Scientology’s ads “are constantly violating terms of use with ridiculous amounts of postings in a number of cities across the United States and Canada,” with more than 100 ads being posted daily in New York City and San Francisco.
Anonymous’s repeated emails to Craigslist about the issue weren’t answered, “so we started thinking out of the box and posted ‘counter ads,'” the tipster is quoted as saying in BI.
Anonymous posted hundreds of ads in the U.S. with similar titles to Scientology ads like this one, entitled, “How to Rid Your Body of Invisible Dead Alien Spirits Course”: “TO RID YOUR BODY of the hundreds of invisible dead alien spirits that are clinging to it, you need to take the initiative,” one fake ad insists. “Success requires personal motivation.”
The fake ads are pretty indistinguishable from most new-age jargon you may stumble upon on the Internet, so we wouldn’t be surprised if our crazy aunt who loves crystals has given Anonymous a ring as a result.
