“Atheist Republic”, the world’s biggest page operated by atheists, has been restored by Facebook.
The page was taken down by the social media giant after thousands of people reported the page. A huge outcry by atheists and free-religion activists have made sure that Facebook restores the page.
Atheists Republic, which was taken down 24 hours ago, has over 1.16 million users. Used by the atheist community for communication and exchange of ideas and information, it is one of several such minority-oriented pages which was taken down after “mass reporting” by religious people.
The page was created by Armin Navabi, of Iranian origin, and was moderated by several people including Allie Jackson.
Jackson, who has been moderating the page for over six years, said,
I’m simply in tears. Every single day, we have helped numerous atheists.. now, without proper reason, without care, they remove us.. they have cut off our reach to the community we’ve spent years growing.
The “mass reporting” by believers has successfully targeted various other groups too, including Freethinkers of India which was taken down six times. Ironically, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, initially enlisted as an atheist.
