Some years back, LDS church president Thomas S Monson gave a talk in which he admitted that Mormons did in fact contribute to the persecution that they suffered. No, our people were not perfect little angels being harassed by demon inspired bullies. And, yes, Joseph Smith did make mistakes during his ministry. This is no reason to liken him to someone like David Miscavige.

EDIT to previous comment: I missed properly accounting for Taiwan. They have about a dozen churches and missions there, so their count of 650 “likes” puts them in the average ballpark of about 50 to 100 per location, and also just a bit behind Russia, which generally fits with the amount of activity reported and observed in those countries.

Thanks for that, I was thinking it would be interesting to look at a breakdown like that and it’s great that you did it.

I’m not surprised at some of the less obvious countries with small numbers, at least some of those could legitimately come from members scattered there or people attracted to some of the small “groups” that CofS says it has established – many of which were probably short-lived efforts. Depending on how long Miscavige has had his Facebook page up, the numbers could be mostly legitimate, representing in part the typical turnover of people joining and leaving, particularly outside the US.

The one that really stands out is South Africa, that has got to be vastly inflated. I would expect it would be half or less of the UK, where the numbers do more or less make sense – about 50 from each of approximately 10 cities.

The numbers are an interesting reality check, even if somewhat suspect. There’s an expectable number of hits from Russia, and a few from just a couple of the former Soviet republics, but not enough to suggest that there is a lot more activity there than we are aware of. The numbers for Japan and China are small, and presumably the latter includes Taiwan, which would seem to confirm that their Asian presence is actually as minimal and the orgs as empty as everywhere else.

Presumably all members who have been active in the last couple of years and who have Facebook accounts, have been strongly encouraged to like Miscavige’s Facebook page, which still amounts to fairly pitiful numbers, especially in contrast to their claims. It’s telling that outside of the US and the dubious South Africa count, the numbers seem to fairly consistently correlate to around 50 to 100 per org, which fits with other accounts of the number of active members in the cities where they have a presence.

Fascinating. 45 from New Zealand and he was just there opening an “ideal” org and they can muster only 45? He has also opened “ideal” orgs in Belgium, Japan and Sweden. All of them with less than 100 people…

8204 USA
3088 South Africa
868 Italy
864 Mexico
765 Russia
650 Taiwan
526 UK
433 Hungary
367 Venezuela
357 Colombia
332 Canada
316 Australia
245 India
223 Spain
204 Germany
203 Israel
194 Denmark
165 Romania
122 Switzerland
120 Philippines
119 Pakistan
116 France
102 Brazil
91 Sweden
81 Kosovo
77 Argentina
70 Ukraine
68 Ecuador
67 The Netherlands
63 Indonesia
60 Slovak Republic
59 Japan
58 Kasachstan
57 Greece
52 Macedonia
52 Belgium
51 Costa Rica
45 New Zealand
44 China
38 Austria
38 Nigeria
38 Guatemala
37 Czech Republic
36 Bangladesh
32 Portugal