Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Why do activists continue to make use of MySpace? - Calling for a new online social network

an indymedia activist | 15.02.2007 14:42 | Indymedia | Technology

After some recent discussion on whether a local critical mass group should set up an account on the social networking site MySpace, some interesting things came to light. The amount of activist and campaign groups using the social networking site is growing. These groups include not only critical mass groups in London, Oxford and Manchester and anarchists from Norwich, Gwent, Ipswich but also bigger initiatives like Earth First (1) | (2), Plane Stupid, the Anarchist Federation (1) | (2) and the Cowley Club in Brighton. Even within the independent media world Democray Now, the Indypendent (1) | (2), and Indymedia (1) | (2) collectives from San Diego, Los Angelos (1) | (2) and Indybay have joined the MySpace craze. All but to name a few really. But is MySpace really the online community I would want to be part of? Looking into its structure and the real reasons behind its existance, I doubt I would.

social networking
social networking


A couple of years ago I did join MySpace, thinking it might be my kind of thing. I created an account and within a few days I had small network of 'friends'. I only visited the site a few times and I can see that it becomes a rather addictive past time. In July 2005 something changed. Republican pro-war media tycoon Rupert Murdoch had 'bought' the community. From that moment on a different light shined on the 'community' for me. MySpace provides a huge profit base for Murdoch's business in corporate advertising. Murdoch is an Australian global media executive and is the controlling shareholder, chairman and managing director of the News Corporation, based in New York. In the US this includes the republican rightwing Fox News Channel, in the UK, tabloids such as The Sun, News of the World and The Times. The Sun is currently with over 3,5 million in circulation the most read paper in the UK. Murdoch is one of the few chief executives of any multinational media corporation who has a controlling ownership share in the corporation. He has been discribed as being the most powerful in the world of (corporate) media. In the US Murdoch has a long history of supporting the Republican Party and was a close friend of Ronald Reagan. The News Corporation ownes hundreds of newspapers, TV Channels, film studios, radio channels and internet assests all over Europe, the US, Latin America, Russia, India and as far and wide as Fuji, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and China. Murdoch's News Corporation currently juggles with over $60 billion worth of assests in over 70 countries, including more than 300 million cable subscribers. Over the past year, he has spent nearly $1.5 billion on new-breed Internet companies, including MySpace, hoping to 'transform the free social network into a colossal marketing machine'.

Needless to say Indymedia and many other independent media outlets excist as a counterpart to the rightwing policitical propaganda that Murdochs empire produces. For example, Murdoch's papers strongly supported George W. Bush in both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections and his publications worldwide tend to adopt pro-American views. During the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq for example, all 175 Murdoch-owned newspapers worldwide editorialized in favor of the war. Another example some might recall is the near publication the Chris Patten book. Chris Patten was a British politician who became the governor of Hong Kong just prior to its handover to China. A biography of Chris Patten was due to be published by Harper Collins (part of News Corporation) but it was dropped. It was alledged that the reasoning behind the drop was due to the fact that it was critical of China's human rights. News Corporation was, at the time, trying to complete a deal regarding Star TV with the Chinese government. The News Corporation has also been accused of using the combined power of its consolidated media assets to push out rivals and push towards a media monopoly. An example of this would be News Corporation's attempt to buy the football club Manchester United. In 1998 News Corp bid £623.4 million for the UK based football club. It's fans were outraged and raised the question of an encroaching monopoly, as News Corporation owned the rights to broadcast the all premiere league matches, of which Manchester United was one. It was alleged that by controlling Manchester United, News Corporation could influence the decisions about the selling of the rights to broadcast the all premiere league matches.

Calling for a new online social network



It does strike me that some groups make so easily use of the corporate owned MySpace network. Even though Indymedia UK has helped promote some peoples activities on MySpace in the past (1) | (2) | (3), the Indymedia network has always actively promoted and facilitated the use of open source software, and alternatives to the commercial and corporate media currently dominating our lives. From what I can see Indymedia was set up as a tool for information sharing and social networking. Although Indymedia needs to improve its social networking capacity, is there really a need to move over to MySpace? The main question is: is it time for Indymedia to build a new social online network with similair features to sites like MySpace, Live Journal, Bebo, etc? After all people seem to hang out elsewhere, which distracts from what Indymedia is all about: bringing people together. There is an interesting development of open source social networking software in the pipeline called the Appleseed Project. 'The Appleseed Project is an effort to create open source Social Networking software that is based on a distributed model. Apart from that, Appleseed will also have a strong focus on privacy and security, as well as a commitment to seeing the user as an online citizen, as opposed to a consumer to be targetted. This is in stark contrast to current social networking websites, who rely heavily on ad placement and data mining of their users. ' Ah, now that sounds like the kind of place I'd like hang out. A Beta version has been released. Is the time ripe to set up shop ??

Links: the myspace con ! | Spooks at Google and MySpace, PayPal, YouTube, Ebay, and Yahoo | Myspace/Fox Artists beware!! | American Non-Profit Seeks to Transform Global Human Rights Advocacy | Bill Moyers: 'Big Media is Ravenous'

Articles related to Rupert Murdoch: Murdoch press advocates detention camps | Murdoch’s media empire girds up for a war against Iran | Murdoch media has legal right to disinform | Google sell out, blogger to be sold to Murdoch!!! | Outfoxed - Rupert Murdochs war On Journalism

an indymedia activist

Comments

Display the following 10 comments

  1. I would like to see — intrested
  2. Money where mouth is? — Mike Novack
  3. eh — rasputin
  4. Responses — an I.A.
  5. do we need another site — jim bowen
  6. response — rasputin
  7. Security - please — Flymo
  8. personal security — ghost warrior
  9. I have mixed opinions about this — An Indybay Editor
  10. a thought — a thought
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech