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MySpace Users Revolt Against Murdoch

Posted by Hemos on 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.""

4 of 393 comments (clear)

  1. Er... by tolan-b · · Score: 5, Informative

    MySpace isn't a file-sharing website is it?

    1. Re:Er... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not a file-sharing site, per se. However, it does have a large community of bands and musicians, and allows them to stream their music via builtin players and whatnot. I can (almost) see how a clueless journalist could confuse that with "file-sharing".

  2. News International? by nwbvt · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.
  3. Re:something is not right about this one by kid-noodle · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here's the skinny - MySpace.com was originally a filesharing site, however that went defunct in 1999.
    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, and allegations regarding spyware.
    IntermixMedia was subsequently bought by News Corp. for an apparant $580m.

    Exactly where the two (three, 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.

    --
    fortune -o