Scientology forces critical movie off the Web

modemac writes: "About one month ago, a low-budget movie about Scientology was made available on the Web entitled The Bridge, directed by Brett Hanover. There was a flurry of interest in the movie, and it was quickly downloaded over 2,000 times from the Internet Archives at archive.org. At the time of the film's release, Net users wondered whether Scientology would do the same thing they did when a movie called The Profit was produced in 2001 — namely, attack it and get it removed from the public view. Today, it was revealed that the answer to this question is "yes." On Brett Hanover's personal Web site, there is a very brief announcement from the filmmaker saying: "I have requested that a recent film of mine be withdrawn from circulation, online or otherwise. Please grant me this request, and do not contact me concerning this film. I am no longer supporting it." Well-known Scientology critic Mark Bunker (the founder and maintainer of the Xenu TV archives) offers a bit more information at his own blog. He suggests that Scientology used a tried-and-true tactic that has been seen in many other critics of the organization, known among the organization's opponents as "shuddering into silence." The movie is no longer available on Google Video. (However, at this time it still appears to be available at the Internet Archive.)"