With the airing of HBO’s newest documentary, Going Clear, there was a huge buzz on social media about Scientology. However, the “religion” tried to counter that conversation created by the film with paid-for promotions on Twitter used to bolster their anti-HBO propaganda, reported Salon.

Tweets from the handle @FreedomEthics, Scientology’s Freedom magazine that handles lots of its propaganda, attempted to smear those who appeared in Going Clear. Some news outlets reached out to the Church of Scientology to no avail. Shortly after, Karen Pouw, a representative of the organization, released a statement via Ad Week.

We had an all-time high interest in Scientology during the airing of the HBO show. Over 50,000 people came to our website before we even issued a tweet. As there were so many people curious and interested, we decided to spread the word.

Pouw obviously doesn’t understand how the internet works. A huge television event happened, and people went to the source material and read about it. It’s highly doubtful that Scientology’s surge in web traffic is indicative of any interest from potential new members.

Here are some of the promoted tweets from Scientology. They’re pretty sensational.


And here’s where the tweets start getting desperate.