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Myspace deleting profiles of animal rights groups

Ruby | 18.07.2008 23:56 | Animal Liberation | Repression | Technology

In the last few days many animal rights Myspace pages/accounts such as Speak Political, Love the Animals, Free the Caged, Atillas Battle and Animal Aid have been closed/cancelled without explanation. Interestingly, the SHAC and the SPEAK (groups usually in the firing line for repression) myspace pages have not been taken down.

Mr Murdoch

Have any other political campaigns lost their Myspace pages recently or is this just against animal rights groups? The AR movement is usually the first in the firing line maybe because it is a small movement with not so many supporters in the press. If this is allowed to happen without objection then no doubt other activist pages will be next.

I know many in the progressive movements are against using myspace and other corporate networking sites but they are an excellent tool for spreading information, networking and promoting events.

Please, politely contact Myspace and ask them why they are now barring political groups from participating.

http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc.contact

Ruby

Comments

Hide the following 13 comments

Is it just me.......

19.07.2008 18:02

or is it a bit suspicious, shac and speak have been left alone. Is it for evidence gathering purposes to be twisted and used against them at a later date?

Paranoid

For what it's worth,

20.07.2008 02:06

does anyone know if these profiles were using mass-adding tools, etc? If so, that might be why they were deleted.

rogue

Animal Aid seems OK

20.07.2008 07:51

Animal Aid's videos seem to be working OK now (Sunday 20th July) though can't find the others.

Gregory Beetle

Not using mass-adding tools,

20.07.2008 12:50

I don't think any of them were using were 'using mass-adding tools'.

Ruby

you say...... but.....

20.07.2008 15:03

You say that myspace is an excellent tool for reaching people but the very fact that myspace removed the pages proves that it is NOT.

An excellent tool isn't one where you rely on the some corporate monopoly to tolerate your existence while you try to hack away at it's foundations. You will always be doomed to have your tools taken from you in such cases.

An excellent tool is one we build and own ourselves and which is independent as much as possible from those we attack with it. This is why people built tools like indymedia.

so there you go

is any one surprised?

20.07.2008 15:53

isn't this a bit obvious? Myspace is owned and controlled by the corporate internet elite, and by Murdoch at that.. are you really surprised that AR myspace pages are being closed down?
whatever happened to building our own infrastructure, what is this obsession with myspace et al within the radical mileau
worried about how many friends you've got?

bleeding obvious

Defender

20.07.2008 18:29

Any reasonable comment on the plight of animals or other creatures should in my estimation be allowed to be seen and relayed.Society is guilty of not properly informing its public of the ongoing atrocitys concerning the animals. Proven case history in reviewing some heinous serial killers, has in fact exposed much history of animal torture and death from these demented individuals and from a young age too. animals should NOT be hunted,exhibited or worn. In the beginning of time God did NOT intend animals to be manipulated for human beings pleasures.

Concerned Activist

Using Myspace for campaign groups...

21.07.2008 15:37

The fact is we live in a media-saturated world with an increasing depedence on computers and the internet as a form of media. While it is very true that so-called radical groups should not be worried about how many friends they have on myspace, I really think their presence there does more good than harm, as long as their activism does not etend purely to a myspace page. Whether we like it or not, so many people can be reached using these utilities - and while they can be used to spread messages of greed and hate, I would rather be using the state's own tool against them to promote a more 'radical', compassionate ideology than not using it altogether.

Mark Bacon & Siddique (now an official couple)

Plus...

21.07.2008 18:25

...lets face it, most of NETCU would be out of a job if all the animal rights people left myspace and they closed the SHAC myspace!

Smokey B

Alternative social networking tools required

22.07.2008 09:55

I'd be very interested to see which Myspace accounts have been deleted - does this include political sites outside the animal rights field too? It would be interesting to see how organised the repression is and (if any) what topics it focuses most upon.

On a related note - which Paranoid touched on - even where radical groups appear to be left alone, it is worth considering how much visitor and owner data is shared with the police. Surely if the state gives incentives to a corporation to do so, they will not have any objections? The incentives can be powerful too: a generous tax write-off, or even just a saving in legal costs that could come about if Myspace (et al) were to refuse a request for data.

Meanwhile I think that Myspace and Facebook etc. are good tools for radical change, but they are at risk, as "so there you go" and "bleeding obvious" say. They should be used until something better comes along.

There are some interesting alternatives, although from my own research, my guess is that they are not mature yet, and are not tuned to the needs of non-technical users. Readers should check out Crabgrass (

https://we.riseup.net/) and the blog/networking facilities of Z Communications (

http://www.zcommunications.org/).

Readers may be interested to know I am working on an alternative social networking platform too. This will be non-corporate in flavour, not designed as an advertising platform, and is expected to offer many of the social networking tools that increase the reach of groups campaigning for positive social change. It is in design and development presently and of course when a release is available, I shall advertise it on Indymedia.

Jon

f*ck news international, get some quality hosting from greennet and try Elgg

23.07.2008 19:53

Elgg is an open source social platform based around choice, flexibility and openness: a system that firmly places individuals at the centre of their activities.

Your users have the freedom to incorporate all their favorite tools within one environment and showcase their content with as many or as few people as they choose, all within a social networking site that you control.

http://classic.elgg.org/

oi yoi

@oi yoi

31.07.2008 13:29

That's all very well - I'm in favour of open source software and building our own alternatives to the media - but telling people "here's a software package, now go and create an attractive social networking environment that is going to be popular with campaigners" is probably not going to have much of an effect.

Essentially we need to look at the features of an ideal activist-based social networking environment (as well as the technical infrastructure) and discuss how we are going to build it. I'd wager than in the untidy world of open source, there ought to be several solutions that rise to the top, and they can potentially interconnect using XML.

Ultimately the core goal should be getting activists from different topics (e.g. anti-war and environmentalism, anti-capitalist and autonomous spaces, etc) identifying common aims and working together to increase the net amount of social justice activism they undertake.