Exclusive: Moonies Trying to Manipulate YouTube Rankings

(Updated below)

The following is the text from an internal Unification Church memorandum:

MEMORANDUM

TO: District, State and Church Leaders, Blessed Family
Department Representatives; for all Blessed Central
Families and Second Generation
FROM: Rev. Phillip Schanker – VP for Education, FFWPU-USA
David Hunter – Director of Youth Education, FFWPU-USA
Education Dept.
DATE: February 9, 2008
RE: Changing the Image of True Parents and the Unification
Movement on the Internet, especially YouTube

In keeping with some of the desired outcomes of the four
national level Witnessing Summits, the Education Department
of FFWPU-USA is taking steps to present more positive
messages about True Parents and the Unification Movement on
the Internet. But we need your help!

Unfortunately, we can not remove or delete negative content
on the internet. But we can take steps to offset that
content by saturating the internet with positive media and
taking steps so that the positive content rises to the top
of search results lists related to the Unification
Movement.

The Education Department is currently focusing on YouTube,
the most commonly used video-viewing website on the
internet. We are making efforts to place on YouTube a
large resource of videos that truly represents the ideals,
life and work of our True Parents and the Unification
Movement – videos focusing on family values, the Blessing
of marriage, and peace.

Placing such videos on YouTube is not enough, however.
Despite many videos already uploaded, negative videos still
top the list when you search “Unification Church.” We are
realizing that the videos that end up at the top of the
list are the ones that have the most views, are the
highest-rated, and have the most comments. This is where
we need the concerted efforts of all Blessed Central
Families.

You can make a difference by following these simple steps:
1. Go to www.Youtube.com.
2. Create a free YouTube account if you don’t already have
one.
3. Log into YouTube using your new or existing account.
4. Find the Education Department’s user account, called
“FFWPUUSA.”
5. Click on, “Subscribe to this User.”
6. View all the videos that we have already uploaded.
7. Rate each video (we hope you will feel that each one
deserves five stars!), and add your comments about them.
(We welcome your critiques, but please send those directly
to us by email. We hope your comments on YouTube will
inspire others to watch these videos as well.)

By subscribing to our account (FFWPUUSA), you will be
notified by email anytime we upload a new video. In this
way, you will always be able to quickly view our new
videos, rate them and make (positive) comments on them.

We are confident that you will enjoy and benefit from the
videos we place on YouTube. At the same time, deliberate
efforts of our American membership can quickly give our
True Parents, and us, a more balanced and accurate (and
positive) image on YouTube. Isn’t this worth a couple
minutes of your time?

Thank you in advance for helping to make True Parents and
the Unification Movement better understood on the internet.

May God bless you and your family,

Rev. Phillip Schanker David P. Hunter
VP for Education Director of Youth Education
FFWPU-USA FFWPU-USA Education Department

UPDATE: I created the video "The World's Most Powerful Cult" for YouTube. One way to thwart the Moonies' attempt to manipulate YouTube would be to give the video a high ranking (I have a list of things to do).