MySpace users angry over News Corp censorship of YouTube

Is it “censorship” if it’s being exercised by a private company? I don’t think so.

I have written to Justin who created the youtube myspace group, his profile is at myspace.com/jucho and asked him why the group has vanished. It is quit strange that all traces of protest can be eliminated.

See my blog post
Misunderstanding??? MySpace swallows and silences YouTube
http://samkoma.net/videoblog/?p=19

The reason it vanished, is because myspace allowed youtube again.

I got into a rather heated discussion with Tom of myspace ( president?>)

I guess, after a few straight questions to which I got no reply, the service was no longer blocked.

When the service was unblocked, the group was deleted, but I dont know if it was deleted by myspace, or the group creator

After reading this blog, i would just like to let everyone know that i work at popist.com its a new social network like myspace. We have a ton of better features and WE DO NOT CENSOR you can have whatever you want youtube is welcome on our site!! come sign up for a free profile and the hell with fox the hell with myspace! let freedom prevail!!!

well, i am a myspace user and i don’t use youtube, however, i have used revver.com (a similar download/upload video site) in the past on myspace. upon returning from vacation, i am not able to post video thumbnails with links to revver and furthermore when i made reference to the website in an email to a friend, the actual phrase “revver.com” was replaced with an ellipse! what else are they blocking that we don’t know about?!

Yeah ! Myspace reinstated my videos! See people bitching and moaning DOES actually work. All the same always keep your eyes open people!!!

“F**k News Corp and Rupert Murdoch. He is a freaking douchebag”

I love whiny liberals

I became aware of “myspace.com” via my son who is in the Army. I had originally thought it was a place to meet friends or find long lost friends. It became extremely evident to me in the last few months it has now become a pornographic site and they do not adhere to all there TOS rules that they write. This is public knowledge and even after I write and told them my husbands daughter is only 12 – they still allow her on. It’s sickens me and most likely consequences will continue. Makes me sick to know this is a site that is not monitored and the owners are making high dollars on what apppears to becoming a pornographic site and for future child predators!! YES THIS IS IN AND ALL OF MY OPINION! They should have just renamed it Mypornographicspaceandchildpredators.com site!

I agree that it’s bs that fox can take out these things in your profile, but at the same time it IS their right as in the agreement you sign when you sign up and it’s not like this is a huge surprise. Of course we all figured that fox would block random things but as well there is no restriction on what you can put up at youtube. Does fox really want to be on every other news network with a story that blasts them for allowing someone to have a child pornography movie on their site? The answer is no, so frankly as much as it stinks I think it was a good move. And of course youtube is not supposed to post those types of things and fox most likely knows that. But there is NOTHING from stopping people from doing that and even if it’s just up for a second, if someone sees it then fox will get the heat as well as youtube and the poster. Frankly I can’t blame them for doing it, I probably would as well.

As for this mother who said that myspace.com is a porn site you are not exactly accurate as to the site’s purpose and honestly it’s current state. I am a member of both sites and yes.. sadly porn on both. youtube seems to be better on this aspect but the sad fact remains that they both have it. The real problem is that your daughter must go on the INTERNET to get to both of those sites. If you just put a “dirty” word into any search engine it will return porn sites and I can almost guarantee that she knows that, so honestly if she wanted to get to porn she knows much easier ways than both myspace and youtube. So I’m here to tell you something that you don’t want to hear: It’s more your fault if she starts to look at it. Here’s the basic facts about the situation:

It is impossible for fox/youtube to block all of the pornographic images. They do their best but there is no program to automatically figure out what is porn and what’s not and frankly it would be impossible to make one (I’m a programmer.. I would know). As well with millions of users they can’t have people checking all of the profiles at all times.

As for how it’s your fault? There ARE hundreds of programs to monitor what sites she goes to, every key she types, and even take pictures of your daughter’s screen every hour or however often you tell it to. If you’re really that worried that your child is looking at porn then install 1/all of these and then when she is caught punish her accordingly. As well you can block certain sites or any site with certain words in it using what is called “wildcards”. The even better side of this is that many of these programs can be found for free.

As for her using other people’s computers then those people/parents are liable for allowing minors to see porn. So perhaps inform them that you wouldn’t hesitate to take legal action if they allow her to see anything.

As for what I really think you should do: In the end really it comes down to your parenting. If you really think that she’s seeking out pornography then perhaps you should talk to your child about the situation. If anything it will weird her out that 1)you know and 2) you want to talk about it. I truly believe that porn really isn’t that bad but if you do or you think that it’s immoral then perhaps you should explain to your daughter that you’re concerned for her well being and that anything you limit her on is only because you really care about her.

OK that’s all I have to say really, sorry I went off on a rant everyone. But like or hate what I have to say leave a constructive message. And Mrs. Garcia best of luck with your daughter.

~Charlie

PS. for anyone who is mad that the makers of myspace who sold their site.. they did it for 580 million dollars. I’m pretty sure I would have sold it too!

LOL.. I’m sorry Mrs. Garcia.. but that was ridiculous. I honestly tried my best to show you respect and give you information relevant to the issue but you respond back and attempt to ridicule me.. and a poor job you did at that. Now I failed to realize that your daughter was, in fact, your step daughter. For this I apologize as that is a more difficult situation where parenting is much more complicated. However maybe you should not be so quick to judge. For example you might have missed the parts where I said that “sadly” there was porn on these sites. Honestly I would prefer them to have nothing but clean and fun material but that is not the case. So here instead of yelling back and throwing insults at you for humor purposes I would like to discredit your argument.

First off, I never said that I like porno and certainly not that I make any type of profit from it. I write programs Mrs. Garcia, like the one you’re using now to read this post. The fact that I see no problem with porno simply means that I don’t see how I have the right to judge someone who looks at pornographic sites. I could honestly care less what my neighbors are doing and even less about complete strangers. If you do and you have strong feelings about it then that’s OK, I respect that. However, don’t you dare insinuate me as being immoral or lower than you in any way. You based that on pure speculation where really you have no idea what type of person I am.

Second, despite what you said it turns out that myspace is entirely within their TOS. In fact if you read it you would see that…

“Your MySpace.com profile may not include the following items: telephone numbers, street addresses, last names, and any photographs posted by you may not contain nudity, violence, or offensive subject matter. Information provided by other MySpace.com Members (for instance, in their Profile) may contain inaccurate, inappropriate or offensive material, products or services and MySpace.com assumes no responsibility or liability for this material. ”

they then later state that they may remove material that they deem offensive with no notice to the member and so on and so forth.

As for them going down like napster you are again mistaken. The real fact is that napster was taken down simply because they had a central server that harnessed all of the information. This facilitated the stealing of songs and therefore illegal. However you might ask why individual people were sued when it came to kazaa. The reason is that kazaa worked around the laws and was perfectly legal, as is Myspace. The artists so desperate to stop what was going on then decided that they had to sue individual people which was the only option left.

So basically in conclusion many parts of your argument were not entirely correct. They are completely within their terms of service as was/is kazaa. If you actually want to argue who is performing illegal actions then it is: your daughter because she signed up underage and the people who post those pornographic images. As for what you can do, if you really feel that this needs to stop then stop trying to make me look foolish and contact myspace.com with their convenient contact link at the bottom of the page and report inappropriate material.

If you really want to respond again I’d appreciate it if you gave me some more respect. For the fact of the matter is that if you really want to challenge me in law or computers then you should think about coming better prepared.

~Charlie

On a very different note, I wish nothing but safe travels for your son in IRAQ. I have a few friends in the military so I know your son is a very good man. I thank him for what he has done for our country.

Thank you “Keihan” for what you wrote. I was trying to get across to Charlie exactly my concerns of what you have just written. It took several emails to finally get my step-daughter’s account “deleted”. Although I will probably become the horrible “step-mom” that got her deleted she may or may not develop another account I do not know.All I know is what my husband and I were trying to do, and this was to keep her safe and away from exactly what we have been writing about. Although I kept reporting to MySpace how she was seiously underage – they kept writing back and stating “they had not enough evidence”. Because of the “field” I am in I know how dangereous the internet is out there. Finally after my husband emailed them under his name giving them her date of birth and cc to his lawyer and giving them his rank in the Army they FINALLY deleted her account. It was extremely sad that her biological mom was not monitoring her on this. I became so concerned and frightened for her because of what I did see on (her space). If people do not have kids out there sometimes I feel they are so ignorant of so many places the Predators will and can go and what they can find out about our young teens of today. My only son of course you probably read is 22 and is an adult and in the Army. That would have been awful had something happened to your daughter. I am so glad you became aware and are extremely computer savey and smart and knew exactly what to do. It ruins young people lives if they fall prey to internet bullies and child predators out there. If they become a victim it stays with them the rest of their lives. I’m here to say that I work in the Mental Health Field and have dealt with young people and adults that have become a victim of molestation and this new internet of “Myspace” is just an added tool for the convicted Child Molestors that have been let out or have not been caught yet. You have described the internet quite well! You are so right about this. Thank you for sharing your story here. I hope it will help others as well and they will listen to what you wrote. Thank you….!

I agree with you in every aspect here in regards to the TOS rules and you are correct. I don’t know about other states but the very individuals who created this should have known young teens under 18 cannot sign any contracts, after all they were from the State of California, the very State I am from which prompted me to do what I felt was necessary and my step daughters own father. I felt personally if a website were to be created and this be obviously generated more for perhaps the younger generation for 18 and above, it should not includge nudity and vulger language. TOS rules proclaim they monitor and in fact they don’t as you mentioned. Many of us will have an opinion on this matter. This will indeed follow many lawsuits. I found it rather ironic that when my husband wrote the email after myself sending a copy to his lawyer – it was only then Myspace.com deleted her account. It shouldn’t have to come to this if this was monitored legally or if her biological mother would have monitored it. I feel in time this will subside and Myspace will eventually fall and it’s just a matter of time. Unfortunately I feel many young females or young males will fall prey to the many child predators out there today and there are thousands of them. Thank the good Lord above you were able to talk to your daughter. I wished my step-daughter would have listened to her father but she wouldn’t and continued her outrageous behavior. Enough said… take care and I hope more adults will take this seriously and take futher legal action if necessary. I believe they will when it finally involves their own children. Have a great day.

Freedom Of Speech also means freedom to monitor and make all forms of media, internet, newspapers, magazines, radio & tv a safe responsible place for all ages.

If something is proven to be the opposite and continues after warnings – then it should be shut down – removed from the viewing source and the people responsible for this violation should be judged in court and allowed legal representation and then let justice prevail!!!

All the Youth responding to this BLOG with support are too immature to understand this concept until it happens to them!!!

It will be too late and like the 13 year old girl – they’ll never grow up to see & realize their youthful exuberance & ignorance be corrected & awaken to teach others they could have mentored in the future. Study the Data before you speak from emotion???