Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Secular Student Alliance reports:
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.
And apparently, MySpace refuses to reinstate the group despite not violating any rules:
"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.
MySpace sucks anyway. Use Facebook.
Comments
I just went over to MySpace and searched the groups on "Agnostic". Got lots of hits back, listing the atheist/agnostic group again & again. Of course, none of the links are actually to that group... they take you to random groups all over the place.
I'm sure this is just a temporary technical glitch and it'll all be straightened out soon.
Riiiiiiight. Sometimes I amuse even myself.
Posted by: KCProgramr | January 31, 2008 10:04 AM
Couldn't someone file a lawsuit on the grounds of religious discrimination?
Posted by: Russell | January 31, 2008 10:13 AM
I doubt it. MySpace is privately owned. I think discrimination laws only apply to government entities.
Posted by: Susan Brassfield Cogan | January 31, 2008 10:40 AM
You might be able to file a lawsuit on the basis of MySpace being like a public utility/common carrier. I'm surprised someone hasn't tried class action lawsuits on that basis against Google, eBay, MySpace, etc. just to shake them down.
Posted by: JScarry | January 31, 2008 10:45 AM
Hmmm. I actually was supposed to have an interview with myspace yesterday, but they never called as planned. And given this, I don't think I'm going to have anything more to do with them.
Posted by: Russell Miller | January 31, 2008 11:04 AM
MySpace is a cesspool of the world's worst imaginable HTML, anyway. I wouldn't have a thing to do with it, if it weren't for the fact that all the roller derby folks are there.
Posted by: Squiddhartha | January 31, 2008 11:08 AM
You may not be able to win a lawsuit, but you could generate a lot of press with it.
Posted by: Reed A. Cartwright | January 31, 2008 11:09 AM
Yesterday was National "Delete Your Myspace Account Day," according to some segments of the blogosphere. Looks like good advice.
I've never been on Myspace. The few times I've looked at it, it was just a mess and offended my design sensibilities.
Posted by: Elf M. Sternberg | January 31, 2008 11:11 AM
I don't use MySpace all that often, only to see what friends are doing.
How I ended up with a MySpace page is interesting. I'm walking down the street one day and see what looks like a state ID laying on sidewalk. Pick it up, google the person and it seems the only way to contact the party is MySpace.
And of course MySpace requires registration to contact members so there I created the account, contacted the party and all is well again.
Posted by: Tony P | January 31, 2008 11:17 AM
There was a Simpsons episode where Homer creates a web page full of horrible, busy, annoying graphics like a dancing Jesus and flying toasters. MySpace is mostly like that.
Posted by: Doug | January 31, 2008 11:24 AM
Myspace might just be the crappiest website in existence, so anything driving traffic away is a good thing imho.
Posted by: Hank | January 31, 2008 11:55 AM
MySpace - it's like GeoCities on crack, but owned by Rupert Murdoch. What's not to hate?
Posted by: Dunc | January 31, 2008 11:55 AM
I'm a pretty religious person but i find this horrible. This is simply a matter of freedom of speech. I don't really care militant atheist (and i'm sure they don't care for fundamentalists) but this kind of behavior seems truly unhealthy.
Posted by: John | January 31, 2008 12:09 PM
"Militant"?
If starting a MySpace page is all it takes to be "militant", then what word should we use to describe the likes of Osama bin Laden or Eric Rudolph?
Posted by: Wes | January 31, 2008 12:16 PM
"Militant"?
If starting a MySpace page is all it takes to be "militant", then what word should we use to describe the likes of Osama bin Laden or Eric Rudolph?
Or Rupert Murdoch?
Posted by: Giles | January 31, 2008 12:45 PM
facebook sucks too, but for completely different reasons.
I've been hearing rumours from some of my techie buddies that a new facebook starting to form which actually has real security on the database side and encryption and such.
It'll be interesting to see if they can pull it off.
Posted by: anon | January 31, 2008 12:53 PM
Haven't touched my MySpace page for almost a year, but this gives me an excuse to log in just to remove it.
Posted by: JakeS | January 31, 2008 1:04 PM
Tony P - that is either very moving, or the most hilariously guilt-ridden excuse for setting up a myspace account I've ever heard.
Posted by: Chuck | January 31, 2008 1:21 PM
What's so horrible about myspace? Just set your browser to turn off all the plugins, turn off the css, turn off the images rendering, and then reset your modem and do a virus scan after you leave. I don't see what the big deal is, really.
Posted by: 386sx | January 31, 2008 1:30 PM
You may not be able to win a lawsuit, but you could generate a lot of press with it.
MySpace isn't just a dumping ground for pictures of people shirtless and wearing backwards baseball caps. For certain people it is serious business. It is a major source of promotion for musical acts-- I know of more than one major-label band whose MySpace page is the only active online presence at this point. There are political campaigns which seriously use MySpace as an organizing and promotional tool. And so on. Unlike MySpace itself, these companies and candidates which use MySpace for actual business are actually accountable to their customers and constituents. Maybe they should be asked whether they're aware they're actively supporting a site which openly engages in religious discrimination.
Posted by: Coin | January 31, 2008 2:54 PM
I guess, if they wanted to be truthful, the owners of MySpace.com should rename their site to OurSpace.com (or, for an even longer name, "OurSpaceNotYourSpace.com"
Posted by: John Houde | January 31, 2008 3:40 PM
....Why use either?
Posted by: MRL | January 31, 2008 3:59 PM
Coin's right about it's use in music promotion, and it's more so true. My brother's band's online presence is MySpace-based as are most of the local bands I know - I was even going to be putting my demo stuff in a month or so there.
Has anybody got a comment from the company over it beyond the customer service interactions? Somebody with decent credentials could probably get something out of them through their press office, but I don't have anything to work with except my updated-once-every-month-or-so blog, so they'd probably just blow me off.
Ed - maybe you should give it a stab since you can say you're with the Michigan Messanger and have a relatively popular blog.
Posted by: MattXIV | January 31, 2008 4:04 PM
More appropriately, MySpace should change its name to JesusSpace.
Posted by: bernarda | January 31, 2008 4:21 PM
Youtube censors atheists, as well. It is currently impossible to be a popular atheist vlogger on youtube and ever find yourself on honrs lists for most discussed, most favourited, most popular, etcetera.
Pat Condell, for example, should be #1 on about a dozen lists everytime he makes a video, but he never is, he's removed from those lists.
Youtube realized after the Ginsburg thing (they deleted his accounts repeatedly because he quoted from the Koran), that it's much more effective to censor people if you don't delete everything, just make them unseen.
Posted by: Gordon S | January 31, 2008 4:40 PM
Youtube censors atheists, as well. It is currently impossible to be a popular atheist vlogger on youtube and ever find yourself on honrs lists for most discussed, most favourited, most popular, etcetera.
Huh. Is that only true for atheists, or does the same filtering occur for all religion-focused "vlogging"?
Posted by: Coin | January 31, 2008 5:42 PM
Myspace is part of Rupert Murdoch's holdings? That explains it. Isn't this more proof that we have to maintain net neutrality?
Posted by: Rod | January 31, 2008 6:12 PM
I'm with MRL.
A couple of years ago, at the end of the school year, we got together with the teachers who were leaving. One of them was going on about how useful My Space was for letting his students know what was going on in class (I guess listening and paying attention were out of the question?) He said "I don't know why all of you don't have a My Space."
I said "Because we are grownups."
Posted by: BaldApe | January 31, 2008 6:16 PM
I fail to see what the big hoopla is about: The atheists could neither see the MySpace page nor prove that it exists. I'm Ok with that.
Posted by: kehrsam | January 31, 2008 8:01 PM
I think discrimination laws only apply to government entities.
It depends on the situation at hand and state law, I think - for example, people are usually protected from religious discrimination for housing and hiring. But for atheists to use this for a lawsuit would be a mistake, because it plays into the whole "atheists are just another religion" thing. People should always be held responsible for their beliefs.
Posted by: jeffk | January 31, 2008 8:12 PM
So, when I advise my friends to use a different service than MySpace, which one should I tell them about? Are there any similar services that aren't run by right-wing ideologues?
Posted by: Grammar RWA | January 31, 2008 8:20 PM
They both suck.
Posted by: Jacob | January 31, 2008 8:33 PM
There's no way a religious discrimination lawsuit would fly, but is there a chance MySpace is breaching its terms of service? It's quite likely they reserve the right to delete groups/accounts at whim, but if they don't and the group didn't break any rules, they'll have a case.
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | January 31, 2008 9:51 PM
I don't know about MySpace, but the claim against YouTube is false (so far).
There is plenty of pro-atheist, anti-creationist, anti-fundie and for that matter pro-FSM (blessed be his noodles) material on YouTube.
Posted by: dr.steveb | January 31, 2008 9:53 PM
dr.steveb, you may be looking at what is there, but you aren't seeing what has been taken down. Youtube banned the Rational Response Squad's account, as well as Nick Gisburne. I think they reinstated RRS, but they didn't let them put up all their old videos again. And Gisburne is still banned. I know there have been others, but they aren't coming to mind.
Posted by: Grammar RWA | January 31, 2008 11:11 PM
Idiot.
Posted by: JimC | January 31, 2008 11:20 PM
I've never been to MySpace and don't ever intend to go. I do find it incredibly funny to watch the reactions of the religious- of whatever stripe, to the recent advent of outspoken atheists who refuse to bow to monotheism's supposed position at the top of the ideological dung pile. One would think they were being dragged to the Colosseum for play-dates with lions the way they bellyache. They call us militant for having the audacity to speak to them without the appropriate solemnity due their archaic doctrines. Persecution, I say, it's persecution!
Posted by: raindogzilla | January 31, 2008 11:25 PM
At first I found this rather disturbing. Then I realized that anything that gets people off of MySpace is a good thing.
Posted by: Hyuga | January 31, 2008 11:48 PM
I don't use MySpace or Facebook. And I don't plan on using it in the future. I have heard that a few Pagan's sites were also deleted though. What we need is a new site for those deleted to go to. And a video site for the banned YouTube videos. I bet they would be a smash and get a quite a few hits.
Posted by: YSTH | February 1, 2008 12:58 AM
But that's not what I said. The removal of content outright has been pretty minor, and I think mostly due to people who dislike the removed videos making fraudulent DMCA claims.
What I said is that YouTube has gone beyond that, and targeted atheists by removing their ability to appear on most discussed lists, and such.
One of the more prominent Youtube atheist explains:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=58WKrwSUsD4
Posted by: Gordon S | February 1, 2008 1:07 AM
http://www.freemyspace.com/?q=node/80
This has a bit more of the story. The last paragraph is particularly strange.
Posted by: Tiax | February 1, 2008 1:55 AM
Tiax: from the article you cited, there also appears to be a strong undercurrent of complete disregard for the need to keep MySpace ("where HTML goes to die") working at all. Perhaps this is part of a larger plan to simply disinvest from MySpace altogether. Big businessmen like Murdoch do this a lot: let a business go to hell, then act surprised and say "Oh look, this business is a piece of crap; let's dump it altogether!"
YSTH: So far, at least, I've heard no complaints of religious bigotry in regard to LiveJournal; so you might want to consider migrating there. (The pages are a LOT more readable too.)
Posted by: Raging Bee | February 1, 2008 9:20 AM
Clicking on Tiax's link (thanks for that), the story is not quite what it's being made out to be, even in Ed's summary. The impression given is that MySpace deliberately deleted this group, but that's not what happened. The group owner got phished, giving hackers the password to the group. These hackers then started deleting members and posts and generally trashed the group, changing its name to "Jesus loves", etc. etc.
MySpace isn't doing anything, apparently, to help the group get back to what it's supposed to be. Which is certainly a customer service problem, not to be scoffed at, but a far different thing than them being responsible in the first place for initiating the deletion, which is what Ed's post makes it sound like.
Posted by: Jeff Hebert | February 1, 2008 11:37 AM
Posted by: nicole | February 1, 2008 2:49 PM
Never had a page on myspace... I only have experience with facebook. It isn't that great ...
Posted by: Sugar | February 2, 2008 1:37 PM
I'm reading these responses, and it appears as if "I don't use Myspace or Facebook" or "(Insert social networking site used by millions of people) sucks" is deemed to be some sort of adequate response to religious discrimination. I understand that Myspace is a private company and I'm sure that their ToS says something to the effect of "We reserve the right to delete any page for any reason at any time. Have a nice day!". However, imagine for a second being denied service at Starbucks for being an atheist? Who will stand up for these people? Myspace users? How about writing Tom a letter? I did.
JT
Posted by: JT | February 3, 2008 11:51 PM
The relevant civil rights statutes hold that it is illegal to discriminate by race, religion, etc., in "public accommodations," which are conventionally defined as hotels/motels, restaurants, and other places of business that are open to the general public.
One could make the arguement that (insert the name of your favorite social surveil- uh, er, networking, site) is a public accommodation.
That arguement did not work with respect to the Boy Scouts of America, which organization was held to not be a public accommodation. but rather a private organization that could discriminate in membership if it so chose (I wonder if it has tax exempt status ?).
Pressing a case on this would also require attorneys and judges who are cyberspace-aware, somehing that can't bet taken for granted.
Posted by: g510 | February 4, 2008 7:53 AM
th'n'kS'ss
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