Tilman Hausherr

Tilman Hausherr is a German citizen living in Berlin, Germany. Hausherr is well known among critics of Scientology for his frequent Usenet posts and for maintaining a website critical of Scientology. Hausherr is also the author of a software utility, Xenu's Link Sleuth, which was praised in a 2002 PC Magazine article covering 70 web builder utilities.[1]

Tilman Hausherr
OccupationSoftware developer
NationalityGerman
GenreComputer programming, Scientology criticism
SubjectScientology, Relational database management system
Website
xenu.de

Coined "Sporgery"
Main article: Sporgery

Hausherr is credited with coining the term "Sporgery" in the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, to which he is a regular contributor.[2][3] "Sporgery" refers to internet attacks that not only spam a forum with offensive posts but also misrepresent regular users by forging their names to the spam posts. The term is a blending of the words "spam" and "forgery".[3][4]

Website

Hausherr's website contains a large section critical of Scientology, including the "Scientology celebrities FAQ", as well as the "FAQ: Scientology in Germany" (2001).[5][6] He has also contributed updates on the activities of the Church of Scientology to the magazine Berliner Dialog, published until 2005 by the non-profit organization Dialog Zentrum Berlin e.V.[7] Hausherr was quoted in Religion Online as stating on his Web site: "Scientology is evil; its techniques evil; its practice a serious threat to the community, medically, morally and socially."[8]

In 1998, attorneys representing the Church of Scientology sent a letter to Hausherr, telling him to remove altered Scientology images from his Web site.[9] Hausherr had parodied copyright-protected images belonging to the Church including changing the Scientology "S" to a dollar sign, as well as elongating the nose of the president of the organization, an image intended to evoke comparison to Pinocchio.[9] In the course of the dispute Compuserve, which was hosting the pages and altered images, blocked his website for terms of service violations.[10] Hausherr defended his site, saying "It's just a page making fun of Scientology--it's a form of art. Parodies are allowed under German and U.S. law."[9]

References
  1. "70 assists for a winning site.(WEB BUILDER'S TOOLKIT)", PC Magazine, April 23, 2002.
  2. Attack of the Robotic Poets Archived 2007-09-26 at the Wayback Machine, ZDNet, by Kevin Poulsen, May 06, 1999.
  3. Højsgaard, Morten T.; Margit Warburg (2005). Religion and Cyberspace. Routledge. p. 111. ISBN 0-415-35767-5.
  4. Rutter, Daniel (16 September 1999). "Gibbering clones the future of Usenet?" (Reprint with annotation). Australian IT. Retrieved 16 March 2007.
  5. Kent, Stephen (September 2003). "Scientology and the European Human Rights Debate: A Reply to Leisa Goodman, J. Gordon Melton, and the European Rehabilitation Project Force Study". Marburg Journal of Religion. University of Marburg. 8 (1). doi:10.17192/mjr.2003.8.3725. Archived from the original on 29 June 2006.
  6. Hexham, Irving; Karla Poewe (April 1999). ""Verfassungsfeindlich": Church, State, And New Religions In Germany". Nova Religio. 2 (2): 208–227. doi:10.1525/nr.1999.2.2.208.
    Hudson, David., Scientology's "Holocaust" : Is Hollywood on the wrong side in Germany's "Church" vs. state furor?, Salon.com, February 25, 1997
  7. Berliner Dialog Article by Tilman Hausherr, "Helnwein und Scientology"
  8. Dawson, Lorne L.; Douglas E. Cowan (2004). Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet. Routledge. p. 261. ISBN 0-415-97022-9.
  9. Macavinta, Courtney (29 January 1998). "Scientologists in trademark disputes". CNET News. Archived from the original on 19 January 2013.
  10. Zehnder, Matthias W. (1998). "Extremismus im Internet" (in German). Birkhäuser Verlag. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.