http://businesslogs.com/web_20/digg_and_youtube_powering_atheism_20.php

Digg and YouTube Powering Atheism 2.0

A few months ago, in October 2006, Wired News ran a story titled "The
Crusade Against Religion" where the author investigated the
re-emergence (or emergence?) of atheism powered by some very brilliant
scientists and writers. Many people around the world have been involved
with this New Atheism, but the most well-known and recognizable figure
is Richard Dawkins who is a professor at Oxford University.

There is no "type" of person who might be an atheist, but if you look
at Web 2.0 community sites like Digg and YouTube, you'll see a growing
number of users there who display anti-religion or pro-Atheism
sentiments. I would go so far as to argue that without large
tech-oriented sites like Digg and YouTube, the Atheism 2.0 movement
would not have taken off as quickly as it has.

Earlier today, a story hit the Digg frontpage with the title "Murdered
for being an atheist" and as of 3:15pm eastern it has over 1100 diggs
and nearly 300 comments, easily eclipsing other stories that were made
popular today. The first comment in the thread was made by the person
who submitted the story:

"It seems like people who are deeply religious are prone to having
hallucinations and delusions. This guy was completely insane and is
probably better off in jail."

That comment currently has +134 diggs, which for people who aren't
familiar with Digg comment threads, is a very large positive reaction
to that comment. The second comment alludes to the killer liking God so
much, that he should be executed so that he can meet his maker quicker
while saving taxpayer dollars, and that comment has +127 diggs.

A few comments further down, Tekrat writes how any belief system can be
dangerous if taken word-for-word by a radical, and how in his Christian
beliefs he takes a particular view of the Bible as a whole and doesn't
just pick and choose. Tekrat is not excusing this person's actions,
rather he says "...this guy should never see the light of freedom
again...he's a picture of everything that has gone wrong with
Christianity", but his comment was immediately dugg down to an
impressive -51 diggs. Tekrat also linked to a Christian Science Monitor
article titled "Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the
mass murders of history", which has a very inflammatory and
anti-Atheistic title, probably one of the reasons Tekrat's comment was
dugg down.

In the last 2-3 months, seven different stories have made it to the
front page of Digg that had to do with Richard Dawkins, with 10-12 more
about atheism or atheist-related stories. Would many of these news
articles become popular on their own if it hadn't been for the Digg
community's promotion? I don't think they would.

Recently Newsweek published an article about how the New Atheists are
taking to YouTube with their message, denying the existence of a deity
in front of thousands of viewers. A video search on "Dawkins" or
"atheism" reveals hundreds of videos about atheism, many with over
100,000 views and thousands of ratings. Without Atheism-related videos
on YouTube making it to the Digg frontpage, I don't think many people
would be as familiar with Richard Dawkins and Atheism as they are now.

This article isn't analyzing if there is a God or not, or if Richard
Dawkins' theories are correct, but that Digg and YouTube are extremely
powerful devices to project a message to the masses. If you combine the
two, as many people have in regards to Atheism, it becomes a veritable
force that can sway public opinion like few other outlets can.