Saturday, December 15, 2007

Myspace is now censoring

Yesterday I had written to a friend on Myspace, and I had to use the words "sex toys" in order to describe what the Stockroom sold. When they received the email, Myspace had replaced "sex toys" with ### ####. And then this morning, my photographer buddy Geoff Cordner informed me that Myspace had removed all links to his site from his Myspace profile. I tried it on my profile, and sure enough, all links to my site now direct to the Myspace home page. Umm, I think we're living in China now.

10 comments:

  1. I'm not sure the comparison to China is appropriate... this is a corporation doing the censorship. They're not a utility, they're not a government. They're entirely within their rights.

    Just as switching to some other service is something we're entirely within our rights to do, as well.

    I'm glad I never hooked up with MySpace in the first place.

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  2. That's just silly... right as they are beginning to get whupped by Facebook is not a good time for Myspace to get prude. Ah well, yet another nail in Myspace's cyber-coffin. Helloooooo Facebook?

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  3. What's typical, of course, is that you can still have white pride guys waving guns around and preaching hate on Myspace, (plus it's very pro-stalker). It's totally cool to say "fuck Mexicans and N*ggers" as long as by fuck you don't mean the having sex kind.

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  4. Well, that's just American culture, I think.

    To paraphrase George Carlin, your content is allowed to have everything to do with taking a life, but nothing to do with creating one.

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  5. "I'm not sure the comparison to China is appropriate... this is a corporation doing the censorship. They're not a utility, they're not a government. They're entirely within their rights."

    Okay. In other words, free speech only concerns the actions of the government. When it's a corporation, everything is ok, there are no laws, no constitution.

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  6. I mean, what's the point of having a government not limiting free speech if any corporate fucker can do it ?

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  7. Yep, Littlehorn... that's the way the constitution is written. The government isn't allowed to regulate what we say or where we say it.

    Corporations are.

    If you owned a billboard, you would be allowed to allow or reject advertisements posted on it on any grounds you wanted.

    It used to be that radio and TV stations were considered, because they used public airwaves, to have a responsibility to balanced reporting, and so the "fairness doctrine" kept them from favoring one party over another (theoretically) but that's been closed down recently... so it's pretty much anything goes as far as corporate speech is concerned.

    Now someone could make the argument that since companies like MySpace function as a government within their "space" on the Internet, they should operate like one and provide their users with the same rights and responsibilities as the government does, but that's a pretty radical idea.

    If you went down to your local mall, would you expect to have the right to put up posters that say whatever you like? Would you expect to be able to take a megaphone and say whatever you like? I don't think you would expect that... it's private property, and the owners can control what's said there and what's done there, or they escort you off the premises.

    It's the same principle at work.

    Your only right in this situation is to take your business elsewhere.

    Which I have.

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  8. In response to Nobilis' initial post, I of course know the difference between corporate and governmental censorship. I was only speaking in a very general way to convey my feeling at the time of finding out about this.

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  9. It's a sad day for users of MySpace, like yourself, but the fact is that MySpace is looking out for their own asses. With all the mumbo jumbo floating about concerning how horrible MySpace is, it's no wonder they are taking things to the next level. You silence one angry mob only to witness yet another rise in its place.

    If it were only that easy to make everyone happy, right?

    Fact of the matter is that people using MySpace have been idiots. Parents have let their children post personal information, or rather their children did so without their parents knowing. Hell, even grown adults are putting themselves at risk by posting personal information on the site.

    The point is that everyone looks out for their own ass first and foremost. Not much can be done in fighting the MySpace censorship, but I agree that they'd better be careful with the things they implement.

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