Through several blogs (Secular Student Alliance, Dispatches from the Culture Wars, and the skeptical alchemist) I learned that an atheist and agnostic MySpace group of approximately 35,000 people was deleted by MySpace for no apparent reason. I don't want to assume there isn't more to the story as to why it was deleted, but according to a Cleveland Plain Dealer article (I'm very happy to see this article in the PD!), it had been deleted once before when a Christian group had organized to get it removed. Maybe I'm naive, but I'm a little surprised MySpace would just bow to a group of Christians like that. What next, no more Muslim group? Can the Protestants gang up on the Catholics? I knew that YouTube is known to easily buckle to complaints of intolerance, but I think that's probably more due to them not having the man power to watch and then judge with a team of impartial experts what videos that receive complaints are actually in violation of terms of service.
I digress. PZ Myers of the Pharyngula blog debates whether or not to delete his account. After reading the comments, I think I will most likely keep it for now, but down grade. And definitely log in much less. If I wanted to make a big splash with my deletion, I missed my chance; yesterday was International Delete Your MySpace Account Day. As several comments on the above blogs notes, MySpace sucks based on its use of HTML alone. Not to mention the abominations of design and good judgment on display.
I was surprised to find out that the MySpace group in question was moderated by a local Cleveland professor, Bryan Pesta. I may contact her to alert her to a fledgling group in the area, The Cleveland Freethinkers. Students at Case Western Reserve University recently formed the Campus Freethought Alliance @ Case with faculty adviser Mano Singham, whose prolific and very educational blog is perhaps the best atheist blog I know of. (Where does he get the time for those long entries???)
Is this just a tempest in a teapot, or something for people to be truly outraged about? Should I delete my account?
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2 comments:
I mainly use my MySpace account to keep track of musicians I like, but I also like it for keeping track of some online friends. I wouldn't delete my account until I knew more about their removal of the Atheist group. I'm probably not going to dig more into the situation, but if I do learn that it was something I object to, I'm not sure I'll delete my account. I'm afraid there are too many groups I like on MySpace to simply drop it. I'd definitely use it less, but I might not drop it completely.
You have to do what's right for you of course, but I'd want more facts before taking action.
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