Twitter's No God Fail Whale Fail

Yesterday (Tuesday, October 20, 2009), I had the most fun I have ever had on Twitter.  Due to coincidence and what appears to have a been a deliberate attempt to start a tweet-meme, the phrase "no god" became the top trending topic.  No doubt this caused much consternation in the Christian camp.  Interestingly enough, I didn't see many Jews, Muslims, or other religions pitching in.  Regardless, what resulted was a day of LOLs, discussion, and outright hatred.

I actually may have gotten into the fray fairly early but I missed the actual beginning.  Thankfully, Attempts at Rational Behavior followed the shit storm that No God Tuesday became.  Evidently the whole thing started when a self-important douchebag (if you have some 30,000 followers and you don't follow anyone, you should be considered a self-important douchebag or a spammer in my book) who used to be in the rap group RunDMC decided to post some decidedly non-empirical widsom.  "Know God. Know Peace. No God. No Peace" is what the former musician now religious spammer called RevRunWisdom posted.  Due to a coincidence in the algorithm Twitter uses, this phrase or parts of it did not become the top trender when all his followers mindlessly re-tweeted the post.  Instead, "no god" became number one.

This is where the LOLs, trolls, and every kind of imaginable internet fun started and neither 4chan nor Anonymous were involved (at least not as a group).  Someone noticed "no god" was trending and mentioned it.  Then someone else, and there was a snowball effect.  Based on my conversations, the entire gamut of discourse was run.  Both the "old" and the "new" atheists were out (personally, I played both cards).  I had people trying to prove to me that modern science was represented in the Bible.  These apologetics failed miserably in there attempts but they were civil and polite.  There was some funny back and forth.  Follow Atheists out there met other Atheists for the first time all the while as the vast majority of the Christian responses were anger filled.  Some demonstrated just the level of absolute hatred some Christians hold towards Atheists.  Interestingly enough, I didn't see anything of the sort coming from the Atheist (actually, when I say "Atheist" I'm referring to the non-deists who posted that day) camp.  It may have been out there but I personally didn't see anything like that.  While people were questioning or openly mocking religion via the "no god" statement or the "#nogod" hash tag, there were remarkably few personal attacks.

The fury and Twitter version of anger spewing, spittle-flying rhetoric from the Christians continued to add to the trending topic because, as they kept complaining about the phrase, they kept posting "no god" themselves!  What happened then was a series of Twitter fail whales as the service maxed out on capacity as this meme reached critical mass.  Still, it kept on until the evening.

Suspiciously enough, the trending topic disappeared around 7pm EST.  It appears Twitter did something to kill the "no god" trending topic.  What is known is that they combined the "know god" topic with the "no god" topic which are, obviously, two different thoughts, topics, or statements.  I'm left to believe the Twitter management is a bunch of spineless cowards.

Well, cries of "censorship" went on high.  I don't agree with that assessment, however.  The "no god" posts are still being posted and you can still search for them so the argument for censorship is fairly thin.  Twitter, though, is changing its rules partway through the game and I call that cheating.  I believe they didn't want the tenderfoot soft-belly deists to see "no god" on their trending topics list so they fixed the game.  In my opinion, that was akin to the "move the goal posts" maneuver we see all the time in the woo-woo crowd.  But, we have to remember folks, Twitter is out for Twitter's good -- not the individual's good or the concept of free thought.  Twitter exists to, eventually, make its creators filthy rich.  Their aim, therefore, was to squelch this unsightly display of unappealing conversation.  Apparently, they have pulled this tactic in the past.  When the show Supernatural was having its season debut, the hash tag "#LuciferIsComing" was similarly buried by Twitter.  I don't watch the show but I suspect Lucifer is a character in it rather than the equally fictional devil.

Now I'm certain that the likes of O'Reilly or Beck and their brethren of pompous indignant blowhards will probably say this was a moment when the good Christians stood up for themselves against the godless heathens of the internet.  In reality though, it was something else entirely.  The Christians directed an amazing amount of hatred and ignorance and did nothing to demonstrate there is a god or that their religion is in anyway loving.  Instead, we saw the degree of insecurity, denial, cognitive disconnect, and self rationalization which is needed to maintain their beliefs.

I am very disappointed in Twitter for their cowardly approach to this event.  While they didn't censor people, they did chicken out and they need to be called out on it.  If you want to give the impression you provide a relatively free form of expression, you don't go changing the rules on people like they did.

As I write this article, I'm doing research on Twitter and, wouldn't you know it, there's another fail whale!  I wonder if the #censorship hash tag is coming home to roost?  We'll have to see.  Despite what is said in the media, the day was entertaining, eye opening, and threatening at the same time.  I certainly trust Christians less now than I did before No God Tuesday.