Watchtower Hid These Broadcasts (A Bunch 3 Weeks Ago)

There is a graduation video on Watchtower's website right now — the 154th class of Gilead, their missionary school, December 2023. In the original, two graduates, a married couple, appear with the rest of the class and are interviewed afterward in a segment called The Inside Story. In the version on the site today, they are gone. Their appearance is cut. The interview is deleted. Two people edited out of their own graduation, with no correction note on the page, no revision date, no announcement of any kind. The same title, the same page, a different past.

That edit was not a one-off. There is an entire catalog of videos Watchtower has quietly pulled or re-cut over the past several years, preserved by people who saved originals before they disappeared. When you lay that catalog next to what still sits on the site, and read the pattern — what comes down, what stays up, and what was happening when it came down — the logic becomes very clear.

Videos Removed Because Someone in Them Left the Religion

Avoidjw.org maintains a running catalog called "Videos Removed from JW.org." For each entry: what the video was, why it appears to have been removed, and a downloadable copy of the original.

The single largest category — bigger than anything else on the list — is videos removed because someone who appears in them left the religion.

Nine music videos — songs 142 through 150 — are gone because singers in them left or were disfellowshipped. A video called The Bible Saved Our Marriage was removed. Johnny and Gideon, Once Enemies, Now Brothers, a conversion story the organization promoted for years, is gone. A construction report from the Cameroon branch was removed because a person on camera was disfellowshipped. A preaching video, a courting and dating segment, a video literally titled Be a Courageous Youth — removed, removed, removed. Same reason every time. Someone in the video left.

In one case, an archivist caught the process mid-cycle: a full 2016 broadcast came down, and the apparent reason was that it had been pulled temporarily to edit out a member who had become what the organization calls an apostate, so a clean version could go back up. The video returned. The person in it did not.

And then there is the Gilead graduation. Two graduates cut from the ceremony footage, their interview deleted, while the rest of the video sits on the site as though nothing ever happened.

I spent about 40 years inside this religion and more than eight checking what they say now against what they said then. The pattern is not subtle. When someone leaves, they do not just lose their family. They lose their place in the record. Their song, their wedding story, their graduation — edited out, delisted, gone without a word. George Orwell called it rectification in 1984, and the people erased he called unpersons. Watchtower calls it disfellowshipping — or now, since August 2024, "removal from the congregation." Different words, same behavior.

One fair objection deserves to be made here, because it is real: some of those individuals may have requested removal. Data protection laws in a number of countries give them that right, and if someone has left a religion they no longer believe in, they may not want their face in the promotional videos. I cannot tell you who initiated any individual takedown, and neither can anyone outside that organization. So set all of those aside — every single removal that could be explained as a privacy request. What remains still cannot be explained that way.

Anthony Morris III: Curating a Fallen Leader

On February 22nd, 2023, Watchtower announced that Anthony Morris III was "no longer serving as a member of the governing body." No explanation then, none since. This was not some background figure in a music video. This was one of the eight men who ran the religion at the time — for years one of the most recognizable and controversial faces on JW Broadcasting.

When he was removed, his videos began disappearing, and Avoidjw.org documented it as it happened. His morning worship talks, his annual meeting appearances, his instructional videos. One video — A Name That Defines Us — was not simply removed. It was re-edited to take him out of the footage and then put back on the site. The airbrushing happened again, this time on a man who spent decades at the top of the organization.

Today, the talks page on JW.org has exactly six Anthony Morris talks remaining. On the full JW Broadcasting page, none of the broadcasts he hosted are still there. The Morris preserved in the removed archive is the one you remember — the one who lit a match on camera and watched it burn to make a point about what he believed would happen to critics of the organization, while the audience laughed.

But the wicked will perish. The enemies of Jehovah will vanish like glorious pastures. Particularly they will vanish like smoke.

The Morris they left in the library is the polite one. The tight pants, the denunciation of workout wear for women — gone. Somebody went through his catalog item by item and decided which Anthony Morris stays on the record and which gets unpersoned.

The obvious explanation is embarrassment. And fair enough — he is embarrassing. But embarrassment alone does not drive the curation. The most infamous money talk in JW Broadcasting history — a video titled Let's Honor Jehovah with Your Valuable Things, in which a governing body member walks through the organization's projected finances, describes more money going out than coming in, and asks members to give — is still on the talks page right now. Thirty-three minutes, full length.

We have looked forward to this next fiscal year and projected the expenditures for all of the theocratic initiatives we are scheduling. In doing the math, we found that the amount of money flowing out will be much greater than the amount of money that we have coming in at this time.

If embarrassment were the engine, that video would be gone. It stays because the man making the appeal is still in good standing, and they still want the donations. Removal follows standing. What is embarrassing but useful stays. What is embarrassing and tied to someone no longer in favor goes.

The Shunning Videos Removed During a Court Case About Shunning

There is a video Watchtower showed at its 2016 regional conventions and published on JW.org in 2017. It is called Loyally Uphold Jehovah's Judgments — Shun Unrepentant Wrongdoers. It is a dramatization: a daughter is disfellowshipped, and her parents are shown refusing to answer her phone calls for years. That was the model presented to every family in the audience.

They loved me and wanted me to come back to Jehovah. I tried to contact them. I just wanted to talk and to hear their voice. I missed being with my family. And they thought about reaching out to me, but they knew that if they had associated with me, even a little, just to check on me, that small dose of association might have satisfied me.

In October 2024, that video quietly came off JW.org along with its companion piece, Loyally Uphold Jehovah's Judgments — Be Forgiving. No announcement.

Here is the timeline of what the organization was doing while this happened. Norway moved to strip Jehovah's Witnesses of state registration and grants over how it treats people who leave — specifically, shunning. Watchtower fought it in court for years. In 2024, they lost at the district court in Oslo. Within weeks of that loss, the disciplinary guidelines softened their language. That August, the Watchtower magazine officially retired the word "disfellowshipped" and replaced it with "removed from the congregation." A simple greeting — once unthinkable — was now permitted, but only if the shunned person showed up to the Kingdom Hall and only if the Witness's conscience allowed it. The governing body announced the new approach in Governing Body Update Number Two of 2024. That announcement is still on the site today, complete with Mark Sanderson wearing a tie in the colors of the Norwegian flag.

If you are tempted to read that softening as a genuine change of heart, compare the eras in their own words.

The Watchtower, September 15th, 1981:

A simple hello to someone can be the first step that develops into a conversation and maybe even a friendship. Would we want to take that first step with a dysfellowship person?

For forty years, the hello itself was framed as a threat. The current frequently asked questions page on JW.org now reads:

We do not socialize with someone who has been removed. However, we do not ignore him completely.

The fine print does the real work on that page. The name change is acknowledged in a footnote. Another footnote quietly withdraws the greeting: anyone who leaves and then speaks out against the organization receives no greeting at all. The hello moved from forbidden to technically permitted — but only at the Kingdom Hall, only if the Witness's conscience allows it, and the friendship it might lead to remains prohibited. Any association outside the Kingdom Hall is still off-limits, and the FAQ fails to mention that.

The 2023 convention program had included videos about loyalty when a family member is disfellowshipped, with this line:

If a member of our family is dysfellowshipped, our affection for them should not be greater than our affection for Jehovah.

That material was removed as well. The frequently asked questions page goes quiet exactly where the deleted video was very clear. The page describes the policy. The video demonstrated the reality. The description stays on the site. The demonstration disappears.

Then, on April 30th of this year, Norway's Supreme Court ruled three votes to two that the state had not met the legal bar to deny registration and funding. On May 8th, JW.org published an article presenting the ruling as complete vindication, quoting their Norwegian spokesman saying former members are treated in a "loving, kind, and dignified manner."

Read the court's own record. What the court said was that disfellowshipping, exclusion, and social shunning were real. What it ruled on was whether Norway had proven enough harm to justify the penalty. The two dissenting justices wrote that the practice operates as a rule-based obligation that effectively removes the right to leave the religion at all, and falls hardest on minors. It was not absolute vindication. But the press release says otherwise.

While a court examined how this organization treats people who leave, the videos demonstrating how it treats people who leave were quietly removed from the official website. Then the spokesman told the world the treatment is loving, kind, and dignified. They kept the announcement of the softer policy. They removed the evidence that showed it was a lie.

There is also a theological problem with citing the Norwegian ruling as vindication at all. Watchtower teaches that every court on earth belongs to Satan — a bedrock doctrine built on their reading of 1 John 5:19: "the whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one." Sitting on their news and announcements page right now is a 2017 video titled Russian Supreme Court Renders Unjust Decision. Satan's court in Moscow rules against them — that is injustice, persecution. Satan's court in Oslo rules for them — that is vindication, a press release. By their own theology, both rulings came from the same source. They are citing that devil's court as a character witness for themselves.

What the Curated Archive Wants You to Remember

This past May, the monthly programs section of JW.org — the page holding complete JW Broadcasting episodes — was cut to the bone. Today, full broadcasts only go back to September 2021. Before that date, eight videos remain: three annual meetings and five Gilead graduations. The list ends at December 2017. The channel launched in October 2014. The entire launch period — the first three years the organization claimed were pulling in two million views a month, by their own count — no longer exists on the page.

Some of that may be a format cleanup. Full episodes retired while individual segments stay live on the talks library. Some of it is probably exactly that, and I will not call the bulk removal sinister when I cannot prove it. But notice what the cleanup left behind.

On the monthly programs page: only ceremonies — graduations and annual meetings, applause and big announcements. On the news and announcements page: a decade of persecution coverage — Russia, Turkmenistan, disaster relief across Nepal, Ebola, and cyclones. On the talks library: the safe version of everyone, with most of Anthony Morris's catalog gone. Blessed, persecuted, benevolent. That is the institution the curated archive wants you to remember.

Here is what it does not want you to remember: anyone who left. The unedited version of a fallen leader. Parents refusing to answer their daughter's phone calls. A video describing the organization's internal computer system — linking every branch to world headquarters and holding personal data on millions of current and former members — that one is off the site as well. And in March 2023, a former member attacked a Kingdom Hall in Hamburg and killed Jehovah's Witnesses at worship. Watchtower recorded the memorial service for the victims and posted it. Then it was removed. There could be legitimate reasons for that. What is observable is that the funeral of their own murdered members was on the official site and now it is not.

There is one more detail worth noting. The official Watchtower library — the installable app — carries Awake! magazines only back to 1970, even though it carries Watchtower magazines all the way back to 1950. The most damaging material about 1975, the organization's biggest prophetic failure, is in the Awake! issues from the late 1960s. Those are the ones not in the library.

If everything you knew about this organization came only from its archive as it stands today, you would meet a blessed, persecuted, generous family — no shunning training, no unpersoned members, no unfiltered leaders, and a graduation where two chairs were always empty. That is not history. That is curation.

Three Rules That Explain Every Removal

Once you see the structure, it becomes legible. Three rules account for every removal and every survival documented here.

Rule one: your place in the record follows your standing. Leave the religion and you are cut from the songs, the graduations, the construction reports, everything. Fall from the governing body and your catalog gets reviewed item by item, with only the approved version surviving. The record is not about what actually happened. It is about who is in good standing now.

Rule two: teachings stay until they become liabilities. The money appeal stays up because donations are still wanted and the man who made it is still in leadership. The shunning training came down because courts started watching, and footage of parents refusing their daughter's phone calls is very hard to square with "loving, kind, and dignified."

Rule three: the edits are silent. No correction notices, no revision histories, no "this video has been updated" dates. A speaker segment gets replaced with graphics. A couple disappears from a graduation. A cover image of a child putting money in a donation box becomes, after public criticism, an elderly woman's hand. The record simply becomes different, and the only people who can prove it changed are those who saved copies before it did.

The archive is managed exactly like the congregation: membership by current standing, enforcement by quiet removal, and nobody mentions the ones who are gone.

Watchtower's Own Broadcasts as Forbidden Literature

There is one more video in the removed archive, and it explains all the others.

It is called Choose Your Apps Wisely. It was never a public video — it was played at congregation meetings and distributed only to elders. Its message was to keep members away from websites and apps that criticize the organization. Members are taught to stay inside the official library. Watchtower, meanwhile, now maintains official accounts on Instagram and TikTok.

The official library has been quietly and continuously edited by the rules you now understand. So if a Witness ever goes looking for one of those removed videos — videos Watchtower made, Watchtower published, Watchtower starred in — they have to step outside the official walls to find them. And they have been taught that stepping outside those walls is apostasy.

Watchtower's own broadcasts are now forbidden literature under Watchtower's own rules. The only people free to watch this organization's history — history the organization produced itself — are the people who have left it.

That is why the archivists matter. Every removal documented here is provable because somebody saved a copy before it happened: former members, researchers, people who downloaded a file years ago, forgot they had it, and sent it to Avoidjw.org. Take something down quietly and you hand people a reason to keep it forever.

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I cannot tell you what was said in the rooms where these decisions were made. Nobody outside those rooms can. But the pattern does not need the rooms. People who leave are edited out the same way members are taught to edit them out of their lives. A disgraced leader is reduced to his harmless talks. The training videos for the practice courts are scrutinizing hardest came down while the case was live, and the spokesman called that practice loving. The flattering stays. The costly part goes quietly, every time. An institution confident in its own history can let all of it stand — the proud parts and the awkward parts — because it is willing to own what it actually did. This archive is not that. It is a loyalty document, maintained in the present tense by standing, exactly like the congregation it rules over. And if you are still inside, or still deciding what to think, there is a question worth sitting with: when this organization tells you about its past — the doctrine, the history, God's unchanging channel — and when it tells you it has always been the way it looks today, how would you know?