Boycotting Myspace because it is owned by News
September 11th 2006 12:12
I am very close to boycotting Myspace. I have a personal page and have made a page for the band I am in, The Signals, but I am very close to cutting off my use of the site. Why? Earlier this year, Myspace, one of the most popular online communities, was bought by News Corp. News own Fox, a number of tabloid newspapers in the UK, and closer to home, papers like The Daily Telegraph. Myspace became so popular for its independence, its dodgy (site constantly crashing) way of connecting people and bands and its simplicity. Obviously this independence is undermined when it is bought for millions of dollars by a huge multinational corporation who I believe partake in advertising journalism. Recently, I have noticed that although they don’t promote the fact News own the site, they do have ads cross promoting other News interests. Read: The Simpsons on Fox.
One may say with the Internet you can’t avoid contact with multinationals, but that would be a cop out. With music that I like, it has for a long time been about small record labels, individuals or small groups doing zines and people just getting stuck in to help push something they love. How then, can we go from that, to aiding this huge company to make ridiculous amounts of cash for the sake of a little promotion? I don’t think we can.
So I figure I have a number of options:
I can let it go and be thankful that it is a good way of discovering new music.
I could boycott Myspace entirely, taking down the pages.
I can write on The Signals myspace page that we don’t agree with being associated with a site that is owned by News, pointing people towards our home page, which has the same resources on it.
I am interested to hear what you folk think. Please leave feedback!
One may say with the Internet you can’t avoid contact with multinationals, but that would be a cop out. With music that I like, it has for a long time been about small record labels, individuals or small groups doing zines and people just getting stuck in to help push something they love. How then, can we go from that, to aiding this huge company to make ridiculous amounts of cash for the sake of a little promotion? I don’t think we can.
So I figure I have a number of options:
I can let it go and be thankful that it is a good way of discovering new music.
I could boycott Myspace entirely, taking down the pages.
I can write on The Signals myspace page that we don’t agree with being associated with a site that is owned by News, pointing people towards our home page, which has the same resources on it.
I am interested to hear what you folk think. Please leave feedback!
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