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| Atheist Republic |
The persuasion of an atheist community is an interesting one. While it for sure adds upward for religious groups to cast online, atheism mightiness non travel the most obvious choice, every bit it's characterised past times a lack of belief, apart from the belief that there's no such affair every bit god. In the USA, atheism is nonetheless something of a dingy word, together with inwards or then States it's something you lot genuinely wouldn't desire to acknowledge to inwards public, then inwards that sense, online communities are really useful.
With 1.6 1 one k thousand members, Atheist Republic is the biggest 1 on Facebook, together with final calendar week it almost got taken downward past times Facebook themselves. The page's administrators were informed that it was going to travel 'unpublished'; the reasons for this weren't exclusively clear, but it seemed to travel a effect of the page beingness reported for abuse.
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 few hours later, the page was dorsum up, together with the narrative became clear - Atheist Republic had been the victim of a volume reporting attack. Facebook added the powerfulness to log personal abuse reports a piece dorsum to assistance fighting online abuse. In regular practise, it plant fine, but it tin travel weaponised if a large plenty grouping of people create upward one's heed that they don't similar a detail page, every bit inwards this case.
It's difficult to tell precisely who banded together to teach the page taken down, but the 2 most probable culprits are religious people who consider atheism an affront to their beliefs (they're an exception, non a rule, but at that spot are nonetheless plenty of them around), or 'militant atheists' who intend the page is also much of a soft touch.
In reality Atheist Republic has goose egg to create alongside attacking organised religion; it's a house where atheists tin beak over ideas together with render back upward for 1 another. They create criticise religion, granted, but they beak close the ideas behind it, non the people who engage inwards it. That inwards mind, they've ended upward inwards a sort of 'damned if you lot do, damned if you lot don't' province of affairs where they're represented every bit a rabid grouping of priest-punchers past times 1 side, together with a neutered assault domestic dog past times the other.
Although this detail flush had a happy ending, these reporting attacks genuinely travel on to a greater extent than ofttimes than you lot mightiness think. One detail grouping - Free Thinkers of Bharat - has been taken downward vi times. Although the determination was reversed every time, it's nonetheless a meaning oversight inside Facebook's framework, together with it's just going to buy the farm on happening, probable on an always greater scale.