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MySpace Users Revolt Against Murdoch
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Jan 09, 2006 08:00 AM
from the the-joy-of-running-user-communities dept.
from the the-joy-of-running-user-communities dept.
arclightfire writes "Looks like Murdoch's News International have stired up a revolt within users of the MySpace file-sharing site they purchased for $629m (£355m) last July, reports the Independent; "Angry members of MySpace, the personal file-sharing website for young adults, are accusing Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation of censoring their postings and blocking their access to rival sites. The 38 million subscribers to MySpace...discovered that when they wrote to each other about rival video-swapping site YouTube, the words were automatically deleted, and attempts to download video images from YouTube led to blank screens. The intervention by News Corp in the traditionally open-access world of the web - in particular the alteration of personal user profiles - provoked a storm of angry posts...The protests gathered pace, and when 600 MySpace customers complained and a campaign began to boycott the site and relocate to rival sites such as Friendster, Linkedin, revver.com and Facebook.com, News Corp relented and restored the links.""
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MySpace Users Revolt Against Murdoch
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Er... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Er... (Score:5, Funny)
(Last Journal: Thursday December 05 2002, @05:02AM)
-Stephen
Re:Er... (Score:4, Funny)
(http://infaux.net/ | Last Journal: Thursday September 01 2005, @02:08PM)
Yep, and let's not a forget it's a site where boys cant keep their shirts on and the girls can't keep their pants on, at least to the pictures. Myspace is not even close to being a file sharing site. It's a site to prove to the world you have no idea how to make a web page. Hey, let's embed a jay-z video and an eminem video on the same page!
Utterly stupid. You could use certain people's profiles as stress tests for firefox.
Re:Er... (Score:4, Informative)
It IS My Space (Score:5, Funny)
All Mine.
Rupert
Re:It IS My Space (Score:4, Funny)
Net free? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://investors.com/quotes/default.asp?ac=&t=aapl | Last Journal: Thursday April 26 2007, @08:17PM)
Seriously.
Re:Net free? (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Wednesday April 27 2005, @01:58PM)
just a minute (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't the world actually be a BETTER place if all the users revolted, and the site shut down altogether?
Re:just a minute (Score:5, Funny)
(http://idunno.org/)
What, and risk having their target audience spread out over the net? At least myspace is a single area that contains their poetry about failed fumblings in the back site of mom's car, their discussions of exactly which black t-shirt are they supposed to wear with what foundation and their row upon row of identical self portraits each proclaiming they look goth because it's unique and original.
No, we should hail Murdoch as a brave netizen for keeping them all in one (mosh) pool.
Re:just a minute (Score:5, Funny)
I think the users are revolting already...
Re:just a minute (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.nerdzapper.com/)
Re:just a minute (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://insignifica.org/ | Last Journal: Friday December 20 2002, @02:38AM)
Myspace is a social networking site, and is introducing millions of kids to the ability to create their own web sites, code/design, and get online in general. There's a ton of crap there, just like there's a ton of crap on fark, and slashdot, and the internet as a whole. But the elitist "wow, we hate it because it seems shallow to us" attitude is unproductive and mean spirited.
Communities (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://suso.suso.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 09 2004, @12:03AM)
So much for corporations being less in control at the hands of the communities.
File Sharing? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.atomicraygunattack.com/ | Last Journal: Monday September 19 2005, @10:06PM)
Myspace is not a file-sharing site. Its one of those "Social-hub" places fat girls post blurry pictures of themselves on.
Rupert is just jealous. (Score:4, Funny)
However samy is my hero. [namb.la]
Way to go, MySpace users! (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.scatterpated.net/)
Re:Way to go, MySpace users! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Way to go, MySpace users! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Way to go, MySpace users! (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.vinaypai.com/)
They worked this time, apparently
"Freedom of Speech" (Score:4, Insightful)
"My Space." That's funny.
News International? (Score:4, Informative)
Hm... (Score:5, Interesting)
The dot com bubble taught us one thing ... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.thepickupartist.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday January 11 2005, @04:44PM)
Shut it down (Score:4, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Monday January 09 2006, @02:40PM)
As it is now, my wife spends alot of time educating parents and showing them what their kids are really up too.
Some are shocked, some don't seem to care.
But I guess the REAL PROBLEM is not the website, it's the lack of parents being involved in their kids lives.
DAMN, I hate it when I'm my own Devil's Advocate........
Re:Shut it down (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.lqx.net/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 08 2003, @10:41PM)
A social network imitating society.. what are the odds?
Just be careful (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm being serious here.
Regardless of your disapproval for such a thing, regardless of whether or not he will stop because of your wishes, he has to learn to be a little more discreet, a criminal record is something you wouldn't want your son to experience as it can hamper him in his future job opportunities and across the border travel.
If you can hack into his account and see exactly what goes on with his other buddies, don't think that it's difficult for that same kid to get arrested for having a picture of a pound of weed, have his computer confiscated, and then have the police go through his conversations with his other friends who'll he will easily rat out for a slap on the wrist.
Re:Shut it down (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://ludditelounge.blogspot.com/)
Re:Shut it down (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.phoenixgarage.org/)
AC, your advice would be fine in a country where smoking pot was legal, but in most countries, it isn't.
In the United States, for instance, in most places, if the police get a search warrant (for whatever reason), toss your house (and they really do toss it - cabinet doors ripped off hinges and everything), and find evidence of drugs and/or drug usage (regardless of who has it - child or adult) - they can "legally" confiscate your property (house and everything in it, if they want), you go to jail (along with anyone else in the house), and your life is pretty much over and done. If you are lucky, you get out, and get some of your stuff back - maybe even your house (maybe). Most of the time, if you aren't the owner/user of the drugs, and there wasn't enough to slap on an "intent to sell" charge, you will just be lucky not to be in jail.
This isn't paranoia talking - this is the truth. Many, many people in this country have lost nearly everything simply because a son/daughter/renter/housemate was using/selling drugs within the house they were occuppying. It isn't even SOP, even within a police department/jurisdiction - sometimes they grab everything, sometimes they just remove the offender and evidence. Sometimes, something in the middle occurs. It seems completely random, and in a way, I bet this is the way it is meant to be - to control the populace by fear, uncertainty, and doubt - in our illustrious and oh-so-effective "War on (some) Drugs".
With that said, even if it was legal to use pot, it would probably be restricted to adults only. As a parent he would probably be best to teach his kid proper drug use, and explain why it is only for adults (effects on growing brains, responsible usage, etc). He shouldn't get too whigged out if he catches his kid doing it, but there should be punishment.
However, in the majority of the 1st world (and most of the rest, as well), illegal drug usage is, well, illegal. Plus, as I have noted above, in the United States, in some random cases, you might be better off (legally and prison sentence length) raping or killing someone than to be caught with drugs. Yes, sadly, our great American society is that fucked up...
Re:Shut it down (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, and hacking your son's private stuff is also a great lesson on trust. My father pulled that stunt too and it cost him bitter tears of regret a few years after the fact. I hope your son educates himself on the practical uses of cryptography and cuts you off from his digital life as he probably already did from his "real" life.
Motorcycle Stunts? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.blindskier.com/)
Re:Stop being so cheap (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://blog.wilf.me.uk/)
You want to set up your own site on your own domain/hosting, go right ahead. Good luck getting any visitors. You want to make contact with new people, communicate with them, set up a virtual social network of people who you can later meet up with in real life, well you need something like MySpace. It's the users, stupid. Oh, and you get to discover cool new bands as well.
And another thing - is the irony of a lot of Slashdot users making fun of a lot of "12-year-old goth" MySpace users lost on everyone but me? I frequent both sites, and let me tell you, MySpace has a LOT more "normal" people on it than Slashdot.
So in summary, shut up.
Way to go (Score:3, Funny)
My God, that's terrible (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, the humanity! Won't somebody think of the children?
Oh, hang on...
Why did they go back after shitty treatment? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://mshiltonj.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday July 26 2005, @09:43PM)
I wish people would hold companies' feet to fire more often. If the only "punishment" a company suffers after getting caught pulling shitty behavior is a few days of bad PR and having to revert the shittiness, then what's the incentive to not be shitty?
How many shitty things will they try next? How many shitty things have they done that don't rile the attention of users?
You know their shitty. I know their shitty. *They* know thier shitty, and don't care, as long as users keep coming back after a perfunctory, insincere sincere apology -- Until the next time they get caught doing something shitty.
Why do users let the cycle continue?
This is not just Newscorp I'm talking about. Consider Microsoft (Verizon phones), Sony (DRM Rootkit), etc. Yet people are lining up for the XBox and can't wait for the PS3.
I'm not much of a gamer, but I've got a PS2. The next gaming system I buy will be a Revolution. Why? Because I haven't heard of Nintendo being shitty to users. (I'm likely wrong, but then I'll have to find which one has the least amount of shittiness. But considering Sony and MS, Nintendo will have to be *really* shitty for me to not go with them.)
Same with RIAA. Why do people buy their stuff? I'll admit I'm a bit of a hypocrit here, because I broke down and bought my wife an RIAA-disc for christmas. (I got her severals CDs, only one of which has RIAA pawmarks on it.)
I'd like to own American Idiot, because its good music, but can't bring myself to giving any RIAA organization my money. (I made an exception for my wife's happiness.)
The only RIAA music I buy now is *used* CDs. With only three or four exceptions in the probably the past five years, I haven't been the original buyer of any RIAA-tainted CDs.
RIAA is shitty. Therefore, I don't give RIAA money. (Well, mostly. I try very hard.)
Microsoft is shitty. Therefore, I don't give Microsoft money. (Yay, Ubuntu! Yay, FSF!)
Disney is shitty. (Senator Disney? Copyright extensions?) Unfortunately, Disney has grudgingly gotten a few of my dollars because of the Disney Princess merchandise and videos -- the crack cocaine of 5-year-old daughters. What's a good alternative to this? Barbie. Is Mattel shitty? I don't know. Anything else?
The thing is, it takes a little work to be a fully informed consumer. Many corporations count on our ignorance. However, the internet improved user-to-user communication so much that it's hard for companies to hide their shittiness for long.
Now, if I could only stop my money from supporting the Bush administration without going to jail....
Nothing's Free... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.nextknowledge.com/)
Out of the free use, I'd say these people can pretty much enforce whatever they want on their space. If they don't want any racist sites, they can filter out as many sites by Aryans and Black Panthers as they want to maintain this. Extend this as far as they can into things like revenue generators. They get a check from Coke, so the word Pepsi isn't allowed in virtual ads on the individual pages. They get paid by file sharing company A, they're not going to allow file sharing company B into their pages.
Nothing's free, these people offer a server and maintain complete control over content.
Now if only I could get my daughter off the damn thing, I'd be happy.
Re:something is not right about this one (Score:4, Informative)
(http://nanosheep.net/)
The MySpace we know today appears to have always been owned by the same people - IntermixMedia (IntermixMedia.com), who were initially called eUniverse and are to all intents and purposes a (viral) marketing company. eUniverse changed their name following accounting troubles which resulted in them being delisted from the Nasdaq [intermix.com], and allegations regarding spyware.
IntermixMedia was subsequently bought [intermix.com] by News Corp. for an apparant $580m.
Exactly where the two (three [businessweek.com], including Brad Greenspan who left around the time of the troubles with the SEC) guys who apparantly started MySpace come into it all, is at best unclear.
Free market concept: no regulations vs competition (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.unanimocracy.com/about.html | Last Journal: Tuesday April 04 2006, @12:04PM)
Customers of Company A (MySpace) don't get what they want. Company B (and C and D and E, etc) offer a better product. Customers complain, customers change hands. Company A either listens to the mass choice making going on, or they go out of business.
Isn't freedom awesome? Hundreds of thousands of people who don't even know each other are able to make a decision together without actually having to decide on what they want. The desires of the masses is met by open competition, not forced by regulations.
Up until 15 years ago, I could understand the regulations debate. Now that the Internet allows millions (billions) to review companies on a whim (and soon via WAP and SMS), the need to regulate would be better covered by more competition. Regulations raise the cost of entry to a market, decreasing competition, decreasing choice, and increasing prices.
New Headline (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.mrcopilot.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday August 02 2005, @10:10AM)
I'm probably wrong, but (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.penguinpetes.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 14 2006, @03:38AM)
FYI Murdock owns FOX News (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.livejournal.com/users/sinistertim101 | Last Journal: Saturday March 24 2007, @12:32PM)
I personally credit Murdock and Fox news for putting Bush into office twice due to the brainwashing. Whats scary is more viewers watch Fox then CNN and MSNBC combined and I could not believe the misinformation that is spewed out. Fox heavily went after Clinton as the most corrupt leader in American history but called Delay's indicement criminalizing politics.