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YouTube atheism is a social movement within the YouTube community, made famous by users uploading videos of themselves denying the Holy Spirit. See main article, Rational Response Squad for information on the Blasphemy Challenge.

YouTube atheists became extremely popular in early 2007. YouTube is well established for providing the medium for internet-based social groups to interact. In December of 2006, one such atheist group, the Rational Response Squad, with director and filmmaker Brian Flemming, started the Blasphemy Challenge. This event dramatically increased the number of vocal and visible atheists. Acting as a catalyst for atheists so start talking about atheism and whom became aware of each other on YouTube which allowed the sub-community to grow substantially.

Atheist and personality Nick Gisburne had his accounts deleted on February 8, 2007 for inappropriate content. The inappropriate content in question was critical of Islam. The video was a slideshow of explicit quotations from the Qur'an, which some may see as offensive. This led users to question the motivation behind YouTube's decision. This lead to increased visibility and numerous people re-posting his original video in the form of replies and others have sent letters to Youtube. YouTube retroactively changed the reason for the banning to copyright infringement on the grounds that he posted a video with copyrighted music. Claiming to be required to do so under the DMCA.

References: ^ Two Ways Not To Handle Free Speech on slashdot.org accessed at February 22, 2007; ^ The YouTube user xild reading her letter to YouTube; ^ Click on more in the sidebar to the right to see the full text of one such letter; ^ Nick Gisburne's personal homepage showing screen shots of correspondence with YouTube; ^ A Note on Terminated Accounts on YouTube official blog accessed at February 22, 2007; ^ Nick Gisburne's personal homepage accessed at February 22, 2007; ^ YouTube Search on "gisburne" accessed at February 22, 2007; ^ Interview with the Creator of the YouTube Atheist Video on Secular Student Alliance accessed at February 22, 2007; 'YouTube Atheists' group on YouTube. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Youtube atheists". This entry is a fragment of a larger work. Link may die if entry is finally removed or merged.

# posted by Cliff Pickover @ 2:38 PM