Slashdot Mirror
MySpace Users Revolt Against Murdoch
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.""
MySpace isn't a file-sharing website is it?
It IS My Space.
All Mine.
Rupert
Who ever suggested the net was free of censorship?
Seriously.
The opposite of progress is congress
Why, again, do we care about the cesspool that is MySpace?
Wouldn't the world actually be a BETTER place if all the users revolted, and the site shut down altogether?
What the Web won't be like in 10 years? (1997)
So much for corporations being less in control at the hands of the communities.
MySpace, the personal file-sharing
Myspace is not a file-sharing site. Its one of those "Social-hub" places fat girls post blurry pictures of themselves on.
adventure-today.com
However samy is my hero.
Karma whoring
Rupert Murdoch's company is actually called News Corperation, not News International.
This is a perfect example of how to fight commercial censorship... vote with your wallet.
This isn't the sig you're looking for... Move along.
...belongs to those who own the presses, a fact-of-life with which I suspect Mr. Murdoch is well-acquainted.
"My Space." That's funny.
Is fast, online organization the new nuclear bomb? IMHO, it is. Watch out big business, or you'll be suffering from a DOR (Denial Of Requests) attack.
7h3$3 4r3n'7 7h3 Ðr01Ð$ ¥0 4r3 £00|{1n9 f0r. M0v3 4£0n9. --OB1
I suppose if this continues that it would be could ease the parental fears suggested in this article I saw on USAToday.com http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-01-...e-sid ebar_x.htm . Time will tell whether this is a site killer though.
Nobody in the UK reads the Independent, but now everyone on /. does?
Weird.
http://jfin.org/jFin pure java open source financial library
The British newspaper? How does it control MySpace? Surely you mean News Corp, the name of the parent company.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Users can protest all they want, big business and the Establishment will NOT budge. In a week or so, this story will be old news and these kiddies will need to get acquainted to the facts of life. A perfect example were the war protests of 2002/2003. Bush noted that he doesnt even read the news. DO you think they made a difference? Decisions have already been made. Articles showing otherwise are simply faux, temprory blips in power.
In the Internet age, the press belong to just about everyone. If someone does not like MySpace, it would cost them very little to set up their own web site, run the way they want to.
A prime example of the power of traffic this site was created out of string and bubble gum and its worth 600 Million dollars.... Where's all this consumer data getting sold to?
You think News Corp. is making that $$ back on adds alone?
Any one care to let me in on the secret??
Who buys the data? What name is it resold under?
This is more common than one might think. I'm not surprised that nobody noticed the same thing going on with Yahoo Messenger. It took me months for my friends and I to notice that Imageshack and Friendster links, among others, were being censored whenever we would try to send links to each other. It makes me wonder who else has been doing it behind our backs. Hopefully, the companies that have gone unnoticed will stop doing this, now that they can see what could happen.
If the dot com bubble taught us anything, it's that "If it's free on the internet, it's unreliable and fully controlled by somebody who will run it into the ground". I'm costantly telling that to bands who rely on Myspace as their primary website. Very soon, Fox might, and could pull an MP3.com and just pull the plug, leaving thousands (millions?) of bands without a web presence. There also plenty of people who only communicate through myspace, and so when myspace goes, all communication ends, and they lose those friends. These kids who think they have the right to post whatever they want are sadly misinformed, but they are 12 years old (claiming to be 18 of course), so we can't blaim them for their naivety.
If the inhabitants of myspace were anything like those of slashdot, they'd leave anyway. I'd stop visiting this url in an instant if fucking Murdoch's Friendly Robot Company gobbled it up, even if it meant resolving slashdot.org to localhost to kick the habit.
Sadly, they probably are nothing like us, and will stick around there like they do on MSN/AIM because "I've got all my buddies on it".
Zealot level guage: I was tolerant of myspace until they sold themselves to the devil. Since then I refused to ever even visit again.
He's a conservative corporate dictator so why did this come as much of a surprise? Oh right, mainstream users. Oh and I use hi5.com which has all my passwords and contact lists. Groovy.
My Youngest son was buying his drugs ( mostly pot, at least I fucking hope ) from this site. And after hacking into his profile, tracking his so-called friends and online buddies, my wife and I deetermined that the site was mostly being used by him for getting with his drug buddies. Hell there was a kid on his buddy list and had a picture of like a poiund of pot on his bed with him in it, and it didn't look like Photoshop either. Were it not for my Oldest who uses it for what it was supposed to be, chatting and sharing vid's of his motorcyle movies and stunts, than I would just blacklist the damn thing.
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........
Users can protest all they want, big business and the Establishment will NOT budge.
That's bullshit. Sure, Bush is a tyrant and doesn't care about what his people think but you can't say that generally no change will happen in government or big business as a result of protests. LOTS of changes have happened as a result of public pressure over the decades! Ask your friends or family about things and you'll have plenty of examples to start with.
Here - one set of examples is the impact Peta (people for the ethical treatment of animals) has had. Companies like Loreal and General Motors no longer test on animals as a result of huge pressure campaigns launched against them. Or like McDonalds now serving healthier foods due to public pressure to do so.
It might even be possible to budge Bush but it's going to take a lot more pressure than has been applied so far. That's a whole other discussion, however. Cheers.
I haven't found one decent looking webpage on MySpace. It seems to be home for teenagers and college students who are too cheap to pay 3 to 10 dollars a month for a hosting company and who still think the blink tag is way cool. If you want freedom of speech and all that other non-sense on the web go get yourself a domain name, pay the few bucks a month for hosting, and a 20 dollar book on HTML. You get what you pay for.
-Dipster
Forget myspace, vainspace.com is where all the slutty underage girls hang out now!
I find it wildly amusing that MySpace will lock down hotlinking images and videos to rival's sites, but they have failed to address their users who hotlinked away 1.5 gigs of my personal bandwidth over the course of a week in December.
Before I got slammed for not taking steps myself to prevent hotlinking, I did use the tools provided by my host via cPanel to disable hotlinking. The only problem is it did not work. I had to contact Tech Support and have them apply the correct code to the .htaccess. After comparing the changes the provided utility made and what Tech Support added, it was very different.
>>>Users can protest all they want, big business and the Establishment will NOT budge.
Perhaps you missed this part of the story:
"...News Corp relented and restored the links."
And this:
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
You don't have to stick around and take it. You can protest, move to "revver" or move to "Austria" deppending on what your issue is.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
Though not entirely clear from your post. One must assume that you have since curtailed your sons MySpace access in order to prevent him from buying drugs via MySpace. But, the question I have is what did you do? I'm sure that simply cutting off or monitoring MySpace activity would only cause him to change his methods and not dissuade him from using weed or worse. Has he simply switched to AIM or cell phone text messaging in order to score his dope, or have you discovered a more effective means? Or have you just turned a blind eye to his new methods for scoring a half kilo of "good shit"?
its not the job of a blog host or any other hosting service to make sure that their users don't hotlink images.
Microsoft: Bloated Giant
News Corp: Bloated Giant
Microsoft: More or less one guy
News Corp: More or less one guy
Microsoft: Doesn't like people using competitors products on their products (Win)
News Corp: Doesn't like people using competitors products on their products (MySpace)
Microsoft: Censors the internet (Chinese bloggers)
News Corp: Censors the internet (MySpace)...
Scary no?
McDonald's changed their menu to make money, not because of pressure campaigns. They realized that people were trying to eat healthier, so they give you a nice, healthy bed of lettuce and greens.
Then they pile on some fried chicken and 400calorie dressing. And charge you more by unit weight for it than just about anything else on the menu.
--Compulsion
Anime nerd, Manga geeks, Hentai freaks, Loli Maniacs, Warez Distributors and Attention-grabbing Cam whores... I mean MySpace users rejoice :)
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
Without a wallet, their bus pass would have to sit in their pocket naked and get all crumply!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
like McDonalds now serving healthier foods due to public pressure to do so
I think you are confusing 'bowing to public pressure' with 'jumping on the bandwagon'
If this were really happening, what would you think?
as a geek, I'd be the first person to promote a new form of communication, that keeps friends in touch with one another.. i just think people get this weird feeling in their minds when they are searching through people's myspace profiles constantly.. its like virtual stalking.. plus its fucking owned by Fox.. Myspace to me, is like the lazy man's blog.. there's virtually no content about the person's life or opinions, just pictures.. people don't want to stay in touch, or communicate.. They merely want to see how people are "looking"..
people are too fucking lazy.. it seems like the less reading they do, the happier they are.. by the way, who the hell is stupid enough to trade copyrighted videos/music, and correspond about illegal videos/music through myspace?? if ya ask me, i say fuck 'em..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
If only there were OTHER ways of posting pictures of yourself on the internet with the spots photoshopped out in the hope that some girl in Kansas will think you're hot and add her to her friends list while discussing with your bedroom-bound peer group the latest netvid of some jerk wiping out on his BMX and straddling his nuts on the crossbar while simultaneously downloading pirated copies of godawful corporate-fabricated whine rock.
Oh, the humanity! Won't somebody think of the children?
Oh, hang on...
I'm not wrong. You haven't thought about it hard enough.
There are many free web hosting places out there that have both the TOS and actual management policies such as that you can do just about everything on the sites. If you have about $9 to spend per year, you can even put your own domain name on it.
In contrast, when the government does something (like take over Iraq) and the citizens protest, the government violently breaks it with police forces and then gets re-elected and remains in office.
Bill Gates was bad... Murdoch eats people and companies for lunch. As soon as I heard about this, I knew MySpace was doomed. Not that I use it or care about it. I imagine the denizens of MySpace will revolt, usage stats will plummet, someone will start an alternate site with no restrictions, and next thing you know Murdoch will be flogging his "yes-men" for making him buy the fsck-ing company.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Trust issues aside, maybe it's time to teach your son about encryption and the stupidity of using a public forum for buying illegal drugs.
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.
I have no clue about what News Corp expected to gain by applying censorship on MySpace forums, but at least it was useful as a wake-up call for all (well, some of) the unsuspecting "bloggers".
A they say on MySpace subscription page: "It's FREE!". Sure, free as in beer...Note to self: get a sig.
It doesn't surprise me seeing as this is now a corporate adventure...
[%] Cingular Ringtones
someguy789: My ___ is someguy789@msn.com
somepersn325: Awesome, where can I download _______________
someguy789: at ___________________________
(-hrair-)
Beware of the shining wires...
I still don't get it. The company made a decision and implemented it. The users didn't like the decision and the masses flocked elsewhere. The company said "oh shit." and reversed the decision.
So again... why is this important? Near as I can figure, this is how it's supposed to work.
The world according to SComps
Apple left off list of - more or less one guy Apple censors by omission and "handcuffs" - in an attempt to monopolize- example Quicktime's H.264 implementation doesn't meet H.264 standards.
After the company has shown their disrepect for users, why did the users go back at all?
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....
Software Wars
However, MySpace managers promptly shut down the blog forum on which members had complained about the interference. An online notice said the problem was the result of "a simple misunderstanding".
Yeah, they misunderstood, all right. I'll give MySpace a year before it's sold or shuttered. By then all but maybe twenty people will be gone.
Never trust a man in a necktie. NEVER.
-mcgrew
(mrc="forums")
Mel Brook's History of the World, Part I. :-)
...who hotlinked away 1.5 gigs of my personal bandwidth...
If you don't want it downloaded, don't post it, moron. It's the public internet, and I'll link to anything on it I damned well please. And so will everyone else who wants to. That's how the internet works.
If you can't afford the bandwidth, either make your stuff smaller or get it the hell off the internet, you cheap assed bastard.
But isn't it "thefacebook.com", I mean if your going to post something make it right?
You can order the chicken grilled instead of fried.
I always enjoy a good whiff of defeatism with my morning coffee. Thank You.
Remember that these so called big businesses all started out as a single person who ended up 'budging' big business or governments. Microsoft started as Bill Gates. Google started as Larry and Sergei. I'm glad they did not talk themselves out of trying. We are all capable of a great deal.
This is a perfect example of how to fight commercial censorship... vote with your wallet.
I vote wtih adblock.
Seriously, Myspace is unreadable without Adblock on. Still, a viable campaign against myspace would be to educate everyone via your blogs or annoucments encouraging and explaining how to block myspace ads on their profile page. Sine Myspace doesn't have subscriptions, this would hit em where it hurts.
1,000,000 without looking a single add... They'd have to close shop though and everyone would have to move to freindster. Hrm... Maybe this isn't a great idea after all.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I hate to point this out... actually, I don't really mind pointing it out, but Myspace is nothing but a free "make your own crappy website where your friends make their crappy website" hosting places. All they do is make a haven for teenagers and child molesters to make as many "friends" as possible on their web pages for no charge. By providing an over-simplified interface to make as many nasty websites as possible so the friends of their users will look and generate more advertising money.
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.
Evil Walrus >83=
I really think someone needs to verify the accuracy of this. MySpace TOM stated that he did NOT sell the company. Another thing that is fishy is myspace is not a file sharing site. And one more thing, the person that posted this has not been very active in postings.
Uncle Mantis
It would be nice if your hatred of Bush didn't over-ride your clear thinking. Bush is not a tyrant. He was elected into office and will have to leave after his second term. What kind of a tyrant waits to be elected to take power and then leaves after only 8 years?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
I don't consider anything with ads, especially large flashy animated banner ads, to be free. FM radio is running a similar campaign now that satellite is becoming popular - many FM stations are now saying "Free FM! Why should you have to pay for radio?" Since I purchased a Sirius subscription in April of last year I haven't listened to regular radio. I'll gladly pay $0.43 a day to NOT have to listen to radio commercials.
Hmm. Can't think of any off the top of my head, although I seem to remember a central European dictator in the middle of the last century who waited to be elected to take power, and then left after twelve years (after some strong encouragement from the Russians to take early retirement). Slightly less time than it took to get rid of Thatcher, IIRC.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
It's not just free services either.
Even if you're paying for a service, the company may turn around and shaft you. (See signature.)
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
You can mode this as flamebait but I do not really care about Myspace users, they and Xanga compromise the new AOL. Their users are net ignorant, cost me money each month from hotlinking to images on my site, and are rude about it when you ask them to stop. If they disappeared tomorrow the signal to noise ratio of web traffic would double, go check out some of their pages, they load sound, video, crap and universally suffers NAWS (Nasty Arse Webpage Syndrome)
I welcome them having problems.
This story is totally bogus, just to see a friend of mine and I started accounts and corresponded about youtube, and several other video sharing sites. Also checked out the 'Independent' and it seems quite a number of their stories have the information all wrong. Can we get this story removed or corrected since I would hate to see Slashdot degrade to the quality of 'The Independent'?
But where else am I going to
foist the fact that I spent
most of my vital early years practicing scales and
writing music with no
commercial potential to
the point of losing all
my social skills instead
of hanging out with my peers?
(see: http://www.myspace.com/aliensporebomb for corroboration).
We now return you to your regularly scheduled slashdot
experience and apologize for
any inconvenience.
Better watch it, that sort of thing gets "out of hand" (in more ways than one!), next thing you know, the cops want to talk to you.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Comment removed based on user account deletion
lamers listen to radio. fucktards pay for it. welcome to a stock market ponzi scheme. two years from now, all radio will be free, and you'll be complaining about a new billionaire you helped get rich.
dummy.
still feel smug?
Most people just don't care that much. When a corporation does something to them, they'll whine, but they won't care enough to actually inconvenience themselves switching to a competitor.
I mean, look at the number of people on Slashdot who still run Windows while claiming to hate Microsoft. "Oh, I need all those games", "OpenOffice isn't quite compatible enough", "I don't want to have to learn something new". Bleagh.
I remember first becoming aware of this in the UK after telecom deregulation. I'd be talking to someone and they'd whine about long distance phone charges. "Well," I'd say, "Why don't you just get a Mercury account?" (Mercury being the first competing long distance provider, with rates less than a quarter of BT's in many cases). There would be a pause, then they'd say something like "Yes, but BT ought to charge less!"
I remember hearing some statistic about the incredibly tiny proportion of customers willing to switch banks. How many people reading this pay ATM fees, monthly fees, fees for checks, even though they don't need to, because they're too lazy to switch banks? And of course, that's why banks introduce gratuitous fees in the first place.
Me, I'm a switcher. A bigger bank bought the one I was at, said they were instituting fees. I took my new cards and checks in, withdrew all the money, closed the account, went elsewhere. Left the bank the task of shredding the paper and destroying the cards, told them it was their problem now.
It's the same with these MySpace whiners. I bet if FOX held to their censorship, 90% of the whiners would just shut up and put up with it, just like most of my friends still use LiveJournal.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Totally off-topic, but hopefully Sirius is better than XM. I got my XM subscription this Xmas, and have decided in only two short weeks that XM seriously blows.
First, I find that it isn't "Ad free" like they say on their commercials. They regularly run commercials on several of the channels I've tried listening to. In addition, although they seem to be able to use the digital subcarrier to give the name of the station I am tuned to (Idoit designations such as "Fred", "Kiss", Boneyard"), they don't stream the artist/title like every FM station in my area does. Throw in the two facts that the DJ's rarely tell you who they just played, and the fact that they play a lot of songs/bands that aren't mainstream, and it can be very frustrating if you hear a song and want to check it out further. In addition, the "digital quality sound" is extremely inferior on my Bose system compared to the over-the-air FM stations. It sounds like most of the music is being played through a tin can.
All in all, I am very disappointed in the XM service, and probably will not renew when this subscription runs out.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
"I'll gladly pay $0.43 a day to NOT have to listen to radio commercials."
So, when satellite radio gains commercials, will you stop paying?
Do you pay for cable TV?
"I'll gladly pay $0.43 a day to NOT have to listen to radio commercials."
It doesn't cost me nearly that much to buy and listen to my tapes/cds/mp3s.
(And it costs me even less if I just turn the thing off.)
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
To a certain extent, its a personal file-sharing website. But in my opinion, it stinks. For a better vibe, check out http://www.popist.com/, which is more of a file-sharing site allowing you to host photos videos and numerous other things.
Walk with Music;
"The other problem is we see companys say one thing and then saying the opposite in the small print."
No late fees.
But there is a certain fee that will be charged if and only if you are late.
This is a proof of the free market concept of needing no regulations.
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.
I think that the-joy-of-being-a-flaming-asshole dept would be more appropriate. This is Rupert Murdoch we're talking about.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
All your space are belong to us!
I've got me and my 732 friends to back me up!
-- Sean "nosebleed"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I find it more than slightly humorous that the population of Slashdot is willing to put themselves on a pedistal long enough to bash the users of Myspace. Apparently after I went to bed last night the nerds became the highest class in the social order. They may not bathe, they may all die virgins, but on this day my friend, they can claim they are better than the population of another website.
Before you go speaking in generalizations about everyone who uses is site, even if they are by and large scene kids with poor taste in music who take bad photos, remember that the road goes both ways. There are plenty of useless trolls on Slashdot that you wouldn't want to be judged with, and there are scores of people on Myspace who feel the same way about all the people you're mocking them with.
Some teenagers are happy.
My Video Blog!
You know, the emo kids wearing "Know your Roots" t-shirts with game consoles older than they are?
MySpace Users Revolting.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Ah. Drama from MySpace.com? Who'd have thought.
Why couldn't Jack Thompson have done society a favor and offered his 10,000 bribe to get MySpace taken down?
You'll let one child perform motorcycle stunts and show off to his friends but you won't let your other child buy pot? Am I missing something here? I'd rather my kid smoke a joint than eat through a tube for the rest of his life. Not that I'd like my kids to do drugs, but you get my point.
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
I hope people are finally Getting It that if we are to subjugate ourselves entirely to technology, if we are content to surround ourselves with gadgets and gizmos, that than perhaps it's not a good idea to leave every single last scrap of control over technology, from space stations to digital watches, in the hands of about five trillionaires worldwide. Can anybody see a problem there?
You have got to be kidding, Anonymous Coward.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Hipness escalation is the ultimate downfall of all such communities. It happened to Friendster, and it's happening to MySpace now. Sincere people look frumpy and boring next to the chick who looks like Trinity and has five-hundred friends and listens only to bands that are so cool that no one's heard of them yet.
A handful of those flakes can turn a legitimate social venue into an absurd hipness contest with a million contestants and no prize. They make me long for the days when people established dominance hierarchies by kicking each other's asses.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
Let's not forget that one of the keys to an efficient free market is the free flow of information. Censoring the MySpace content without notifying the users runs COUNTER to a free market economy.
You need to add a step:
So, yes, as a free maket economy example, the MySpace migration should be interesting, but it's only interesting now that folks know what's going on.
I would argue that what we need here is *regulation* that forces players to divulge information relevant to the market - we have such (SEC) rules in place for the stock market, which is agueably one of the most efficient markets there is.
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
myspace *is* a free service, barring a subscription. if they want to limit what people say while they're providing it to them without cost, then that's their option to do. when was the last time you heard a huge uproar over a site censoring out curse words? (yes, i know it is a bit different when it could be a competitor) if you don't like it, leave. it's that simple. you aren't out of money, you don't owe someone money, just leave. there are plenty of other social networking hubs around.
above everything else, read 5 in the terms & conditions. you agreed to let them do that when you signed up.
My other sig is an import.
The 38 million subscribers to MySpace
38 Million subscribers? Last I checked, Tom had 47.8 Million friends and counting... and that's just the people who like Tom.
On the other hand, like it or not, the news company realized the boycott might gather steam. As evidenced by the election, the vast majority were not behind any Iraq demonstrations.
And somehow I missed the violent police actions breaking these demos. Damn that CNN who hides it on behalf of Bush.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Customer have access to accurate information about companies A-Z. Customers evaluate choices.
Bull. This is a myth -- the free market never needs transparency, honesty or clear information.
Companies that lie or hide the most get crushed the fastest on the occasion that someone does discover dishonesty. Companies that operate more openly tend to last longer. In recent history, the companies that defrauded the most did so by using accountants and lawyers to give them advice on how to skim the regulations close to the edge. The Enrons and the Worldcoms used your laws to screw you -- in a free market, they would never have lasted as long as they did.
The SEC laws and regulations are the biggest reason behind corporate fraud.
I somehow doubt that Rupert Murdoch smiled with relish as he personally squashed the little guys humbly trying to share videos with each other. Next time, try not to let your bias show.
FanFictionRecs.net
A choir of 600.
The remaining millions of myspace users don't care.
Are we to then conclude that the American people LIKE mine distasters, and want more of them? The market has spoken, and energy consumers do not want to pay for mine safety. 12 people are dead, and we're all OK with that, it would seem. The invisible hand once again triumphs.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Most of the responses to this story appear to be "Myspace is just for people to put ugly pictures of themselves!"
But they totally miss where a lot of the appeal of MySpace was coming from. It wasn't from the teenage angst bloggers - it was from the independant bands.
Listen to just about any music based podcast, from "Coverville" to "Insomnia Radio" - especially the latter which emphasizes independant music. Most of the time, you'll hear "the band is at myspace.com/blahblahblah".
Add in the ability to sell your music through MySpace in a simple format, and you have the potential of an iTunes competitor. Not as popular, perhaps, but for a new band, you can make most of your own money, you still own your own music, and you get a known purchasing source which will take care of most of the nitty gritty details for you. Most of the tracks appear to be MP3 DRM-free music. (Shock! Awe!)
It's a long tail kind of thing - the same way that Google and eBay and Apple iTunes Store made money, only more "independant", which gives it the possiblity of being interesting.
*That* is where MySpace is beginning to succeed, and that's why you saw Murdoch trying to control it when people pointed to other sources. It's also why you saw MySpace reverse course - they weren't worried about teen angst. They were worried about the independant musicians jumping elsewhere and MySpace becoming less in the process. I wonder how well the MySpace competitors did when this started happening, and if that's what caused MySpace to go "Crap - our future as an iTunes competitor is about to be SNAFU'ed if we don't stop now".
So, *that's* the real source of the issue, as I see it. Of course, this is all just my opinion. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Mining is a dangerous job -- I do believe in a free market with the Internet to back it up, the voice of the mining industry will become better heard. I write about gold and gold mines, and gold miners have the WORST dangers -- death is very common. With the Internet, more investors in gold mining stock are aware of the problems and are refusing to support senior mines that don't have good AIDS and safety policies.
The death of the miners is tragic, but it IS part of the business. Mining companies have thousands of regulations for safety, and this tragedy still happened. Does this mean we need more regulations? I say dump safety regulations and overhaul tort laws -- this will put a MUCH higher cost on unsafe businesses.
no, in this case they gave in *because there were alternatives*. this is why competition is good and monopoly is bad - freedom to choose.
Oh my. Well, let's just say that I'm glad you aren't in charge of anything important.
Or, maybe you are, and that's the problem with it.
Tort reform, increase cost of unsafe business - you guys never fail to give me a belly laugh.
Edith Keeler Must Die
That /. does the same thing. I don't believe it, but just in case I am thinking of switching to ***** where I can finally have peace of mind. ***** doesn't censor anyway. Maybe we should all switch over to ***** for our news, eh?
In addition, the "digital quality sound" is extremely inferior on my Bose system compared to the over-the-air FM stations. It sounds like most of the music is being played through a tin can.
That's one issue with satellite radio that really bugs me (and I don't have a 'premium' sound system - just the basic Honda audio system). They rave about being '100% digital' but the reality is that they're constantly broadcasting a hundred streams of audio and that's a lot of data. Some stations are better than others (for example talk radio sounds WORSE than AM, but their classical stations sound just as good as FM). My concern was that Howard Stern would sound like AM radio, but fortunately they gave him a channel with a higher bitrate.
Emo kids get depressed.
We all get a laugh.
Emo kids get angry.
God help us all.
myspace is not a file sharing website, you can upload pictures/avatars and all your music files you upload are stored in flash, bands can add music to them, however its just a preview method, most dont add download options, and its the poorest way to swap a file, seriously, ...... the only thing myspace is good for is findin girls, and givin the pics a bit o' sock, you know what im talking about..
Please direct me to the 'file sharing' area of myspace. As the summary implies, it is the main part of myspace, yet I have never seen it! Here I was thinking myspace was a social networking site. Silly me!
The rock station names are in fact stupid (Fred, Ethel, Lucy??? WTF?), and you're right, it isn't ad free. Also, they've started the annoying habit of having a stupid jock talk over the songs now just like commercial radio. Ugh. BUT, they DO in fact stream the artist names and song titles. On some receivers you have to hit the "display" button to show this info.
Today I didn't even have to use my AK; I got to say it was a good day -- Icecube
In what way would you overhaul tort laws?
emt 377 emt 4
They are 18 and older and don't allow kids to interact with adults. I can see myspace getting sued for allowing minors to flirt with 30+ year olds. I can't see how they'd gotten away with it so so long. Communityx.net is just over all a better and safer site.
"and relocate to rival sites such as ... Linkedin,"
When I look at the average MySpace user and then at average accounts on Linkedin, I find it hard to believe that many from the former are moving to the latter. Maybe it's the lack of "sexykitten69" usernames on Linkedin.
Knowing MySpace's history, (Yes I just linked a page to itself. Devious isn't it?) and their rules against blocking adds on your profile via HTML, I would bet that they would delete you into oblivion.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
like all the normal people, you stuck up snobs
or maybe some DAN BROWN novel
As per the MySpace Terms and Conditions: MySpace.com reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject, refuse to post or remove any posting (including email) by you, or to restrict, suspend, or terminate your access to all or any part of the Website and/or Services at any time, for any or no reason, with or without prior notice, and without liability. For people to be irate about this... it'd be the same as if I were angry with the freeipods.com people for not outright providing me with a free ipod video. Read the fine print, kiddies...
In what way would you overhaul tort laws?
This is a great question. Constitutionally, the federal government has no jurisdiction over matters of civil tort.
Before looking at what tort "reforms" would be necessary, I have to first say that I believe that you should only go after someone for matters of civil tort if the person actually did a crime against you. If a gun manufacturer makes a gun and someone buys that gun and shoots you, you should go after the criminal who shot the gun. If you work at a job that has obvious safety problems, you should verify that the job site you are working on is safe -- you are your best safety supervisor. Mining is VERY dangerous, but people keep doing it, most safely.
In a situation where someone creates something that is obviously unsafe, you have to make the decision not to use that product or service, or not take that job. That is common sense. If someone creates an item that looks safe but ends up not being safe, I believe that you can file a tort suit against the vendor (not the manufacturer in most cases). When you make a purchase, you can contractually obligate the vendor to making sure that the product that they sell performs the job it should, and is not inherently unsafe.
The problem with tort today is that it wants to see everyone for one user's incompetence and incapacity to understand personal responsibility. Tort matters deal with criminal intent, not what is deals with today. The New Deal was the beginning of the end for proper tort in this country, as Paul Craig Roberts shows here. Tort became a tool for achieving public welfare goals, but in the end protected no one but government and the cronies protected by government.
Tort deals with the harm done to one person by another. We've gone so far beyond the proper definition of tort that we no longer allow people to realize they have to be responsible for their actions -- and they have to walk away from situations that might be dangerous. People believe they have a right to be safe, and that is why we have such tragedies.
You know, as soon as you hit 30 any day now, your 30+ friends will make fun of you for still being on myspace. ;) (I know, because mine do... but then again i'm 33... my myspace profile is only there for my sub-30 friends...)
But I never saw such a concentration of vapid skinny teens creating incredibly awful webpages in my entire life.
I will say that if you want to find anything alternative (drugs, sex, music, what have you), myspace should be one of your bookmarks...
This Christmas Myspace started displaying ads for Planned Parenthood...
You should have your parent license revoked. Pathetic priorities.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
I use MySpace to keep in contact with my friends, it's a good way to let people know about an upcoming event. I've also been able to contact/been contacted by friends from my past, some I have not heard from in more than 10 years. I'm not sure where this "file-sharing" moniker came from though, I've never used it to send or recieve a file, nor have I seen it mentioned on the site. Regardless, I have used it for social/business networking purposes and have gotten jobs out of it.
It's also a good forum for unsigned/non-major label music artists to gather their supporting fanbase and recieve more exposure through reccomendations.
Make fun of it if you must... but please realize it's not just the offspring of the people who made fun of you in highschool (the site is 18+ BTW), it's a useful site. If you do want to make fun of them though... check out the First Annual MySpace Stupid Haircut Awards.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
For those who live in the states you know what kind of biased garbage they produce. Murdock is an ultraconservative and Foxnews is owned by one of bush's cousins.
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.
http://saveie6.com/
I tried to post a blog entry to let my friends know about the "Chronicles of Narnia" video Chris Parnell and Adam Sandberg from SNL did (hilarious) using a link to youtube... www.youtube.com became www...com when I posted it. At the time I figured it must have been user error.
I should have known. Typical Murdoch bullshit. I was afraid this was gonna happen when I heard Fox was buying it. Friendster? Might as well change their name to spam.com. This could be the beginning of the end. At least Fox hasn't bought Slashdot... yet...
They will never stop until somebody makes the
This Christmas Myspace started displaying ads for Planned Parenthood...
Well, what else are you going to decorate the tree with?
Biggest question that comes to mind is why would you limit
suits to the vendor, and not the manufacturer?
The manufacturer has the information to know ( more ) about
safe / unsafe than a vendor does ( unless each vendor stands
up some kind of testing lab ( read:expensive ) ).
Take cars for example, should each dealership be crash testing
automobiles in order to certify them as safe? I have a hard
time seeing that work out well.
More later.
emt 377 emt 4
Anyone looking for a good social network site with unlimited picture hosting, email, blogging and evite all built in one should check out Zoji.com. No ads and faster than Myspace makes it much nicer, plus every other profile isn't practically unreadable like MySpace...
Actually, I believe that crash testing should be done by manufacturer co-ops, not the federal government, but that's another story :)
In the long run, having a relationship with a middle man (retailer, dotcom, whatever) is key to providing the end user with long term level of happiness. I believe that most retailers historically did more than just provide a product -- they also made sure the product was safe/performed as advertised/worked out of the box/fill in the blank. The retailer did the shopping for the customer to make sure the product was good.
Retailers are able to get insurance against items failing. I know, I am (soon to be was) a retailer. We had a multimillion dollar policy that cost us very little as we researched our suppliers. By giving the consumer this insurance company as a sales tactic, we increased a reason to buy from us. Most dotcoms push claims straight to the manufacturer which really screws things up for the marketplace in general.
Manufacturers used to let dealers fix broken products -- in and out of warranty. The retailer had a key element in helping the consumer with their problems, and the retailer received a much higher margin in the long run. Now, when a consumer is unhappy, they contact the manufacturer, who has to spend more money on customer service, etc.
It is a really complicated problem, but I do believe that the retailer should be the one liable for the products they sell, both in tort as well as in bad products in general. If manufacturers make bad products, leave it to the retailer to stop carrying them, as they'll be responsible for the product.
A buys from B, B should back up the product. B buys from C (manufacturer) only if C has a history of making a good, profitable product for B.
I have no idea what is up with your display not showing artist/track, and all the channels I frequent sound better then FM or AM to me, but I am in total agreement about the adds, and I HATE their naming scheme (you should be able to figure out what a station is without listening to it first).
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
http://www.jennifersterger.com
that's what, 0.00000000001% of MySpace users?
"Apple has launched legal action in an attempt to have patents for video and audio delivery software held by Burst.com declared invalid. The company sued Burst in the US District Court in San Francisco requesting declaratory relief to determine the patents invalid.Burst warns that it will respond to Apple's action and file a counterclaim for patent infringement "shortly". The suit follows a break-down in protracted negotiations to issue a licence for Burst's patents to cover Apple's iPod and iTunes products. Burst first approached Apple in late 2004 in an attempt to agree licences for the use of the technology. Burst's legal team told Apple that the company believed Apple was infringing its patents, and that it would launch action. Apple denies the claims."
"Burst remains committed to the enforcement of its intellectual property and looks forward to successfully resolving this litigation through a licence covering Apple's Quicktime, iPod and iTunes products, including Apple's iTunes Music Store," the company said. Last year, Burst settled its patent and antitrust suit against Microsoft with Microsoft taking a licence to Burst's patents and paying a lump sum of $60 million."
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/01/09/apple_suit/
MySpace is great for getting kids on the internet, but that's not as important in the scheme of things as the very existence of MySpace.
People are meeting each other based on online experiences. And it's not creepy. It's accepted. Strangers are hooking up and having sex and there are no monthly fees and none of the stigma attached to dating websites. Sex. with strangers. for free.
If that's not a killer app of the internet, I don't know what is.
It's not just sex with strangers. It's socialization in general that is the internet's killer app. Once we get over the barrier of the internet being creepy, computerized socialization will make all of our lives better and more fulfilling. It'll be great whenever I get off for lunch and work and get a message on my PDA saying to meet these three guys (or one girl) for lunch at this place two miles away so we can talk about our common interests of blah, blah and blah.
I've never been to jail for bud and I've been smoking for decades. I was pulled over once (driving cross country) and the pig just took it and let me off with a warning. Sounds like you're either a pig or live in Texas (or another red state). Sucks to be you. BTW, medical pot is legal in 12 states. The locals won't even enforce it.
There is hundreds of thousands of users on /.. /.'ers are not unique flowers, you are part of something much larger than yourself than individuals: A group mindset of nerdy technology worshipping. Such is the eternal arrogance of a member of an in-group to define himself by what the out-group is.
Perhaps you should go to the graveyard and recite poetry? Because you are as conformist, normal and idiotic as the idiots you hate.
Manufacturer co-ops? Do tell, I love a good story.
... )
I would be a bit afraid of them rubber stamping everything.
There is no adversarial relationship, and there is no lack of bias.
How do you keep them from lying?
It is true that that happens now, but that is because the manufacturers
( at least as I see it ) have too large a hand in the testing
( and therefore a bias towards success ).
On Insurance, currently, can an insurer sue the manufacturer if
they have to pay out on something the manufacturer put out that
was unsafe? WOuld they be able to under your scheme? Would
these policies continue to be inexpensive under your scheme, or
would the prices go up, due to additional capital risk ( a vendor
would likely have much less deep a set of pockets to collect
damages from
And in autos and bicycles, manufacturers let the dealers fix broken
products ( and how! they sort insist on it... ) I hear claims that
auto's are not all that high a margin, I have more experience in
bicycles, which I know are not high margin.
You are correct, it is *very* complicated. Which is why I would
tend towards being a bit conservative in changing the system.
I would think that having the middle man hold the liability of
the product would tend toward delaying awareness at the manufacturer's
level of product. It would also shield the manufacturer, possibly
making them think less of the idea of having to produce a safe
product, as any effects would be delayed and buffered by the vendors.
Also, history take a while to build, and can be destroyed quickly.
I.E. in the initial stages there would be no history between B
and C, therefore no information to base decisions on. Further,
assume some history between b and c. C can then misuse that, make a
few dollars trading on that history without following it up quite
so well.
Just a few rambling thoughts.
emt 377 emt 4
These teens, always so ambitious...
Oh, well. They'll learn some day.
When MacGyver can't do it, it can't be done.
Defining Statistics and Social Research
Most likely, these sites were blocked because myspace users are killing their bandwidth. I own a website hosting media files, and it is a constant challenge to keep hotlinkers away from my files. This is not censorship, it is crime prevention.
I signed up to have a look around. Not impressed. Regardless of any other issues, nothing seems to work properly. I encountered several huge bugs within minutes. During signup. During verification. While viewing profiles. Just pathetic...