That Was Fast

Last time I blogged, the Atheist and Agnostic Group on MySpace had been deactivated, apparently by methods that seemed foul. Apparently, just two days after the story hit the press (and I talked about it) the group is back up, though not at 100% since some people are still blocked and MySpace is unable to unblock for some reason.

I don't know if this is because of the media coverage, but since the group went down on January 1st, after being harassed for a month before, and the group came back just a couple of days after the reports went public, it sure is hard to not make such an inference. Further, MySpace has, as of yet, given no reason for the shutdown and return of the group. It sounds like a bunch of people that were not doing their jobs properly and are now trying to rectify those issues without doing too much damage to the ego, let alone appear to be intolerant to certain groups.

Now, perhaps the groups canceling was not motivated by such things and it is inappropriate to jump to the conclusion of someone taking their prejudices out on atheist, as I may have in my last post, to which I should say it seems now to have been a bit over the top on my part. However, there are many unanswered questions: why was the group shut down, why was a petition with 500+ signatures to get the group back ignored, why did the group only return after press coverage, and why was the return of the group not explained as well? Add all of that to the fact that the group was attacked and hacked as well as its moderator and the reaction at MySpace was to kill the group off. It just does not bode well for the people managing the place.

Until some sort of explanation can come to light on the part of the administrators of MySpace, it seems that someone was playing hard and fast with a group that had a contrary philosophy to the person that decided what the fate of the group should be. Note, however, that I do not mean to say there is a conspiracy at that place, as it seems to be implied in my previous post. More likely it was one or two people who got in trouble only when their bosses got word of this when it became big in the media.