Social Media Case 9

I have never heard of a General Authority trying to sell something related to their calling or a talk they have given. I remember when the Ponderize talk was given, but I did not hear anything about the website that was created and the merchandise they tried to sell. It made me kind of sad to hear about, and while they probably had pure intentions to begin with, it was disheartening to see them try and profit off the church. This church leader did apologize, and said that he should have stopped this website from ever being started. However, the damage was done and he still received heavy criticism. Ponderize was meant to mean ponder and memorize, but after this event the Urban Dictionary had a different definition for the word.  

While I believe that you should not use your religious position to try and sell merchandise, I do not think the General Authority and his son meant any harm by what they had done. It makes me wonder if other church leaders knew they were planning on launching this kind of website and if it was okay for them to do so. I also think that if the proceeds of the merchandise were going towards a charitable cause, they should have stated that in the first place and not after the fact. It just made them look guilty and like they were trying to make up for doing something wrong. It also kind of made it seem like they were only going to donate the proceeds because people were unhappy with what they had done.

Devin Durrant and his son Ryan probably did not think they were going to be so heavily criticized, and I think that is the case for a lot of people. They do not think of the power of the internet, and how many people are going to scrutinize what you do.