SALT LAKE CITY -- The man behind the postings of leaked LDS Church videos over the weekend said they were given to him by an anonymous source.
Ryan McKnight, of Las Vegas, Nev., admitted to posting 15 videos on Reddit and a YouTube called “Mormon Leaks.” Videos showed high-ranking LDS Church leaders discussing social and political issues.
One video that has drawn the most attention was regarding cyber security where the presenter spoke to the leaders about the various possible ways the Church could be attacked, which included technical, personnel or unintended attacks.
However, the video shows leaders stray from the topic and discuss more in detail the gender and sexual orientation of Chelsea Manning, who gave sensitive military documents to the nonprofit organizations WikiLeaks in 2010.
McKnight, a former member of the LDS Church, said he believes the anonymous source who gave him the videos is someone with the church because when he emailed the individual back Sunday night the account had been deleted.
“Most people are scared to be the source of the information,” McKnight said.
This is not the first time information from inside the church has been leaked. John Dehlin, known for Mormon Stories Podcast, was excommunicated from the church in February 2015 after people from within the church gave him information from inside the church, to talk about on his podcast.
“They asked me to be quiet,” Dehlin said of church leaders. “To shut it down to take down anything that would lead people to question or doubt.”
The LDS church released a statement, Sunday, about the content of the videos, but hasn’t discussed whether they intend to find out who’s responsible. Dehlin thinks it would be tough to do even if they wanted.
“What we see is it’s not just one person who is a bad apple, what we see now is hundreds of thousands of people who have relationships and information they are willing to share to nudge the church to more transparency,” Dehlin said.
