MySpace Users Revolt Against Murdoch 393
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.""
Er... (Score:5, Informative)
Just a quick note (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Just a quick note (Score:2, Informative)
News International? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Er... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Er... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:News International? (Score:3, Informative)
News International is the name of the main UK subsidiary of News Corp. Easy mistake for a Brit to make - I'd never heard of News Corp either.
Re:The dot com bubble taught us one thing ... (Score:3, Informative)
Google and Yahoo's search are fine, because other than a bit of familiarity with their interfaces, they have no lock-in on me. They can't hurt me much other than sticking ads around (and eventually, if the search pages gets unusable, I have to switch.) But every time you use a "free" service provided by a company, you gotta ask yourself ("how exactly could this company hurt me?") Ultimately, they're a business out to make money, and unless you've got a really good answer in which your interests and their own are permanently conjoined, you might want to think again.
Free email providers (c'mon, neither email nor domains are that expensive -- I use mailsnare for $20 a *year*, and domains are something like $10 a year and you can do other stuff with 'em) are going to want to make money off of the lock-in that they've established, and that means doing something that you don't like sooner or later. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday. Maybe after they get bought or their management changes or they sell their email wing to someone else, or they hit hard times...who knows.
Re:Er... (Score:1, Informative)
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,
Now who's obtuse?
Re:News International? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:something is not right about this one (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Shut it down (Score:3, Informative)
Which leads me to my next point. You demonize MySpace, which is simply a communication tool. If he doesn't get his hookup on MySpace, he'll get it through AIM, Friendster, cellphone, etc. So you are correct, it is not the website that it is the problem.
Now my final point is one you're going to hate...but you need to realize that different people have different views on pot, and while he is just a kid and should probably not be using it, what he should be doing is forming his own opinion on things.
Rather than just ineffectively try to stop him from doing the drugs (which, short of tossing him into solitary you don't be able to do), try educating him. And not just that "this is why pot is bad for you" garbage. Why not expose him to both sides of the coin, the studies that point in both directions (it is hardly unanimous that pot is bad) and let him eventually make his own decision on whether it is bad for you or not. Now, thats not to say he's allowed to use it or not. You are his parents, and he lives by your rules. But the kid should certainly be allowed to form his own opinion even if it differs from yours.
FYI Murdock owns FOX News (Score:3, Informative)
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.