A Cyberwar Against Atheists?

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A number of Australian atheist websites, including the Atheist Foundation of Australia, were recently hit with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Now it seems that several atheists have had their Twitter accounts hacked. Are these events related? Probably not. I seriously doubt that there is some sort of new cyberwar being organized against atheists. And yet, I think it might be a mistake to conclude that we'll never see such an effort.

If atheism seems to be growing (and it does), it is largely because of the Internet. In only the last few years, we have witnessed explosive growth in atheist blogs, forums, websites, and the like. You may not know many atheists "in real life," but you can easily find us online.

This suggests that cyberattacks will likely continue, even escalate, if the growth trend persists. I suspect we will also see more websites and blogs springing up to attack atheism. The more we are perceived as a threat, the more likely it is that there will be efforts to counter our simple message that no gods are necessary.

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Tags: atheist, atheism, Australia, atheists, Twitter, DDoS, cyberwar