Mormon Church Makes Bid to Acquire Facebook?

www.brimdeforest.com...

According to Zach Klein and his valley sources, the Mormon Church’s Family History Department has made a bid to acquire Facebook:

"I heard from an employee close to the deal that the Mormon church’s genealogy business made an unsolicited bid to acquire Facebook."

The Mormon Church maintains the largest genealogical database in the United States and apparently has the cash reserves necessary to make an offer of the magnitude necessary to acquire Facebook.

It's pretty entertaining to think about if there's truth to the claim. I don't know much about the integrity of the sources, they seem like some web/creative/technology geeks.

What do all of you think? It's a bit scary to me, but ultimately understandable when I think about how they are at the top of the genealogical technology game.

Imagine the merging of both technologies. Extremely powerful at connecting distant relatives and friends? It'd be surprising to know the results of a true genealogy survey.

... oh by the way, if this isn't the proper area to post this type of thread, please let me know. So many places and "general" sounded good. I think it sounds like some kind of conspiracy could be in place, especially if behind the scenes talks are in place... and we don't hear about it but obscure sources like this.

I'd love to hear what ATS thinks about this interesting food for thought.

Cool. I dig Mormons.

If I couldn't be agnostic, I'd choose to be either Mormon...or Jewish.

But when it gets down to it, as someone who frequently uses Facebook, I'm not really I'd approve of Facebook being owned by any church.

I think facebook should continue to be the way it is. Personally, I careless about facebook, but, I think it's silly for a company to want to buy it and use it to promote a religion.

Fuggle: Cool! I dig Mormons too! Well, mainly cause I have quite a few in one side of my family. All the way back to the ol' pioneers. I've had my experiences with the church and none were overtly bad. Like you, I would definitely not approve of this acquisition.

Frankidealist35: Amen! In spite of whoever should acquire Facebook, I would imagine it would stay the same.. generally speaking. If the Mormon Church does succeed with this unsolicited bid would they go so far as to promote their religion alongside the site?

I don't think this will ever actually come to fruition... but heck, we all love to imagine crazy possibilities.

Okay, I found some more juicy tidbits or clues to help shine a light on this alleged rumor floating around.

Finally, a search query has yielded a legitimate news agency's call on things. Apparently, they dismiss it as just a rumor, though they do report out of Utah. KSL sounds much like the consensus in the LDS Technology Forums.

However, on the blog of Larry Richman of LDSMediaTalk.com, he ponders about the power of Facebook. Take a look to the right of his blog, he's got a title: LDS.org Product Manager

Very interesting, no?

My spine's tingling. Have I found something finally worth the attention of ATS members? Will we learn any facts from Facebook instead of looking to the church? Time will tell...

Some further updates for you all... I'm finding that the ways the Church have responded to this supposed rumor to be rather... well, decisive and effective.

However, I'd like to point out that the source I mentioned above, the thread concerning this topic at the LDS Technology Forums was politely closed so as to have:

the conversations stay around relevant Church technology.
- tomw
Administrator

Now, of course, this happened after the LDS tech forums' OP on the subject replied to all the posts with post #8 that points to a fantastic article at Mashable on why this rumor made sense to some, like myself.

One of the first things I learned as a result of reading the article was clarification about the identities of Brady Brim-Deforest and Zach Klein, the originators of the rumor. Brady is a PR/Entrepreneur buff with tons of projects under his belt while Zach is apparently the founder of Vimeo and original co-creator of CollegeHumor! Although deeply entrenched in the industry, and together possessing a mass of creativity and humor many would envy, would these guys ever seriously fan fallacious rumors that could potentially harm their own reputation? Somehow, I personally doubt they would do that.

The article at Mashable is probably the most thorough analysis of this subject and would, no doubt, pique the interest of many ATSers with the thought that it provokes.

Some topics the article discusses, aside from the rumor itself, are other intriguing aspects of the church. For example, how Mormonism is a for-profit organization and utilizing the technologies in Facebook could potentially rake in some extra dough.

Also, Baptisms for the Dead. This is a well-known rite within the Church and is taken very seriously. The article speculates that using Facebook could increase the possibility of completing such a humongous task as baptizing all of the Earth's dead. Personally, I think truly completing such a task would be similar to counting and blessing all the individual grains of sand on earth and then all of the individual stars in the sky. Nigh on impossible, I'd say.

And lastly, some potent speculation as to why this rumor could have some truths to it, is the article's explanation of Acquisition and Merger Rumors in General, which when studying the history of similar encounters of acquisitions and mergers, puts a lot of credibility into the hands of rumor-mongers.

On one final note to you all, I also find the varied speculation at LDSMediaTalk concerning Facebook and its value in spreading the gospel as potentially powerful proof that gives credence to this sort of rumor.

If any of you have anything to add or if this rumor continues to gain interest in the blogosphere, I will keep you updated. However, if everything quiets down, I suppose this post will as well.

Cheers to you all!

[edit on 24-8-2008 by Rashaverak]

If you guys are worried about the Mormom Church having a presence on Facebook, you should watch this video.

It tells you about Facebooks connections to various government agencies such as... our friends at the CIA, the Department of Defence, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and last but definitely not least, the Information Awareness Office.

Here is the IAO's first logo.


The Mormom Church is nothing, if you are on facebook your profile has already been data-mined by the IAO and now all your personal information is locked away in some database at some government facility.

www.youtube.com...


EDIT: Youtube embed didnt work so I posted the link

[edit on 24-8-2008 by ben420]

Does it really matter if the CIA or whatever alphabet agency you want, stores your information in some database somewhere? Facebook and myspace already do that. Its not like its hard to see someones info if they decide to put it online.

I think we have much bigger things to be worried about than what database my personal info is stored in.....you stuff is already online for all of the world to see, so who cares?

reply to post by PokeyJoe


You are just the kind of fodder that TPTB love. Try reading up on the IAO. Do you think it's just Facebook that they are interested in?

The IAO datamines everything to know anything they can about you. Their goal is to know everything about everyone.

What you search for on Google, what kind of websites you visit, the types of people you associate with, what you watch on Youtube, your online transactions, what you research on Wikipedia, your porn preferences... the list goes on.

But hey, as long as you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide right

Thats the mentality many people hold, and thats the prime reason of why the governments have gotten so much control.

The people are supposed to keep tabs on the government, not the other way around.


[edit on 24-8-2008 by ben420]

Thank you both for your interest in this subject.

ben420: That is very interesting speculation provided in the video link you posted. The links between agencies it shows that are somehow connected to Facebook is astounding. Also, the logo of the IOA doesn't really give me warm fuzzies thinking about them being attached to the largest Social Network. But what about the Mormon Church?

PokeyJoe: Excellent rebuttal to ben420. The amount of databases storing personal information is absolutely staggering, and easily allows cause for throwing hands up in the air with apathy. However, when one considers the sheer amount of data and specifics, at of the information stored by Facebook in the video that ben420 posted... Facebook becomes a very useful tool in categorizing the population easily, by simply "SORT BY $n ASC/DESC." Sorry, that's nerdy database pseudo-syntax.

Thankfully, the only "Social Network" I'm a part of is our beloved ATS... and they assure me (with graphics and U2Us) that my privacy is GUARANTEED!

In an attempt to not stray too far off topic, let's bring this discussion back to the alleged rumor that the "Mormon Church Makes [an unsolicited] Bid to Acquire Facebook".

Would either of you think that information stored within Facebook currently could be used for any useful purposes (both good or bad) by the Mormon Church? If so, I'd love to hear what you think.

Thanks again for the interest! Cheers!