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Showing posts with label MySpace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MySpace. Show all posts

Friday, February 01, 2008

MySpace bans Atheist and Agnostic Group

reposted from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist_and_Agnostic_Group
and
http://blog.newhumanist.org.uk/2008/01/banned-myspace-deletes-largest-atheist.html
and
http://richarddawkins.net/article,2197,n,n

Vote in the New Humanist blog poll:

MySpace has deleted the world's largest online atheist group. What should be done about it?

my comments are in bright green;
highlights in yellow blockquotes.

Atheist and Agnostic Group

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Atheist and Agnostic Group, founded on June 13, 2004, was an internet forum with approximately 35,000 members on the social networking site MySpace targeted toward atheists and agnostics. Due to its growing size and prominence as the largest group on MySpace dedicated to the subject of non-theism, the creator of the group was invited as a representative to The New Humanism conference at Harvard University on April 20 to April 22, 2007.[2]

A campaign by Christians who opposed the group led MySpace to delete it; this deletion was reversed, but two years later, on 1 January 2008, MySpace deleted the group again, and now refuses to undelete it.

The group has experienced several attacks on its infrastructure. On November 23, 2007, the group leader's password was phished, his profile destroyed, and the group taken over and renamed "The Jesus Group". More than half of the regular group members were banned outright, and many of the threads were deleted, including all threads that referred to the hack. This attack ended with the moderator deleting his Myspace profile. Many regulars of the group were banned from membership. On January 1, 2008, the moderator received a message from Myspace stating that the group was scheduled to be removed. Several minutes later, the group was deleted. It is unclear whether Myspace was aware of the incident.

MySpace: No place for Atheists?

reposted from: http://www.secularstudents.org/node/1933
my comments are in bright green;
highlights in yellow blockquotes.

MySpace: No place for Atheists?

Submitted by august on Wed, 2008-01-30 18:09.

Contact: Bryan J. Pesta, Ph.D., b.pesta@csuohio.edu

MySpace Deletes Largest Atheist Group in the World.

Cleveland, OH.— Social networking site, MySpace.com, panders to religious intolerants by deleting atheist users, groups and content.

Early this month, MySpace again deleted the Atheist and Agnostic Group (35,000 members). This deletion, due largely to complaints from people who find atheism offensive, marks the second time MySpace has cancelled the group since November 2007.

What’s unique in this case is that the Atheist and Agnostic Group was the largest collection of organized atheists in the world. The group had its own Wikipedia entry, and in April won the Excellence in Humanist Communication Award (2007) from the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University and the Secular Student Alliance.

“MySpace refuses to undelete the group, although it never violated any terms of service,” said Bryan Pesta, Ph.D., the group’s moderator. “When the largest Christian group was hacked, MySpace’s Founder, Tom Anderson, personally restored the group, and promised to protect it from future deletions.”

“It is an outrage if Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and the world’s largest social networking site tolerate discrimination against atheists and agnostics-- and if this situation goes unresolved I’ll have little choice but to believe they do,” said Greg Epstein, humanist chaplain of Harvard University. News Corporation, Murdoch’s global media corporation which also includes Fox News, purchased MySpace in 2005.

“My personal profile was deleted as well, and despite weeks of emails to customer service, plus a petition signed by 500 group members, MySpace won’t budge. I think these actions send a clear message to the 30 million godless people in America (and to businesses whose money was spent displaying ads on our group) that we are not welcome on MySpace,” said Pesta.

For a Wikipedia article on the now defunct atheist and agnostic group, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheist_and_Agnostic_Group.

For links to Pesta’s defunct group and profile, visit http://www.MySpace.com/aiffb.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Link to the Happy Humans MySpace page

Expanding our presence on the web, reaching out to younger people and bringing awareness of humanism to ever more people, the BHA has developed a MySpace page featuring some of your favourite video clips. Search for “Happy Humans” or paste this link into your browser. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=156433427 Soft launched a few months ago, Happy Humans is a success already with over 100 friends but would love your link too. Help spread awareness of humanism by joining this network.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

RichardDawkins.net on MySpace.com!

Are you on MySpace? Add The Official RichardDawkins.net MySpace account and make us one of your top friends! You can help us promote! We are currently running a flyer campaign, where everyone is changing their profile image to our "Imagine No Religion" flyer. CLICK HERE.

myspace friends