MySpace Censorship Hits Kids in Toronto?

I can't believe this was allowed to be published....

Guys, if it turns out that what you're suggesting is true, I'll be the first to stand up and call bullshit on this. But what you are suggesting is pretty serious, considering the fact that it's all conjecture. There are LOTS of FAR HIGHER PROFILE out of the closet homosexuals on Myspace, with far more friends, that are still kicking.

Anyone that uses Myspace knows that there are a lot of people (sadly, probably the overwhelming majority of its users) there that add friends MERELY to have more and more friends. They don't know the people, will never send them an email, in fact they forget about the invite as soon as they send it.

Could it be that, because Kids On TV are a band that send a lot of invites and such, and leave show ads in the comment section of thier friends, that enough people actually forgot that KOTV were in their friends list and reported these messages as spam? There's SO MUCH spam going around on myspace right now, it could even be people reporting EVERY invite and non-personal comment as spam.

I find this scenario far more likely that what you have posited.

BlogTO, a completely unsubstantiated accusation like this should be the realm of someones personal blog, not the pages of your organization. It's total amatuer hour.

Thanks for your input.
This is a likely scenario as likely as the one mentioned in the article.
If you read closely I mere call MySpace out on it's inability to address the accusations made by several users from a variety of backgrounds.

Considering you don't work for MySpace and neither do I then I can assume you have as little insight into the situation as I do. When you look at the reasons myspace choses to delete profiles its the hypocracy and vagueness that is very clear and worth addressing. Homophobia aside this is an issue too.

But take into consideration the sheer volume of reports coming in from users who even have small amounts of friends.

To accuse the blog of amateur hour is rather amusing when the attempt is merely to start a discussion about something independant music has become far too reliant on. I have to question someone so eager to attack and defend a gigantic corporation.

Take another look at Murdoch's comment
and remember High Profile Homosexual = Label = Money = Safety

At the very least you must agree it's worth a debate and that's all I seek to do is open a debate.

Although I can't speak for the blog as a whole but as an organized group of people with opinions and ideas searching to create dialogue around Toronto as a community I can think of no better a place for this article.

Take a look at the question mark in the title of the piece. The ideas expressed are as unsubstantiated as your opinion of what happened and your accusation that KOTV was spamming. Only mine served to start a conversation and yours seeked to close one.

You may have question marks everywhere, but your article is quite clear in the fact that you are accusing myspace of homophobia. The question marks seem almost like a hedge. I think the article is unfounded and required a WHOLE lot more researching and evidence to support your claim.

If myspace were deleting successful and high profile gay's, explain Jeffree Star.

I hate to be an apologist, but i just think you guys have jumped the gun, to put it mildly.

To recap...

brokenengine: 2
Matt Thomas: 0

I thought that maybe their myspace was removed for a the simple reason that their music is in violation of noise pollution laws but then I realized that other (novelty-driven and talent-lacking) Toronto outfits like Dollarama, and Garbage!Violence!Enthusiasm! still had their myspace sites active. ;)

Will we ever really know why Kids on TV got yanked? What do they have to say about it? Any updates? Rupert Murdoch not returning their phone calls?

HAHAHA OUCH!

For the record, I'm all for discussion and debate. But bring me a topic thats WORTH debating. Bring me something I can sink my teeth into. This is pretty flimsy.

This article is obviously an attempt by a band to get publicity, and nothing more. You think someone at MySpace had time to search through 3 million bands and find your unknown little group? Jeffree Star is more suggestive and outrageous than anything you've got up and they've never touched him.

What can the band do at this point? Is there some sort of contact/appeal process, or are they S.O.L. and going to have to rebuild their page amidst all of this controversy-laden publicity?

http://www.stillepost.ca/boards/index.php?topic=74445.0

might clear up some stuff / new info.
i highly doubt this is a stunt by the band, they are awesome people and have been around for a while. i think this was just a mishap or confusing events.

cheers

Matt Thomas, I think this was worth posting. Yes, it's longer and more article-like than most blog entries on this site (yet not quite long enough to substantiate all your claims with full research), but it's nonetheless an interesting topic well worth discussing. Blog entries can be a little lazy, you're not trying to be a newspaper, because if you did ALL the research we might not hear about this type of thing as quickly as we should. Blogs ARE an appropriate forum to question corporations like MySpace and Google who started off with widespread grassroots support but who should not be given a carte blanche now that they've declared themselves purely for profit. Their actions deserve scrutiny and attack, and in this case, it sounds like there's plenty of smoke to suspect a fire.

Allegations of homophobia aside, MySpace is at fault simply because they ought to have a policy where they are able to *temporarily* disable any site they want to, however, given how real people and businesses depend on their services, it seems grossly suspicious to irreversibly delete sites without any sort of appeals process. I mean, what kind of wimps are they? In the end, they still get to decide, as a private company providing a mostly free service. If they are the ultimate judge and jury of what can be on their site (as should be their right), why, in these cases, are they so afraid of putting resources into a process where they inform an offending site of what they are doing wrong and give them a reasonable chance to correct it themselves?

Broken Engine always seems to be the first one to jump on just about anything. Here he's made well-argued points except for the first one: the "this shouldn't have been published" thing.

If Kids on TV feel that they're being discriminated against by MySpace, then this article and the theorizing that go with it are justified as one blogger's opinion. Blog fascism of the type B.E. is espousing, on the other hand, is essentially useless.

HAHAHA I'm a fascist now? Why, because I think if you're going to accuse someone of homophobia it ought to substantiated?

And I'M the first one to jump on things? Well, perhaps things that are THIS ridiculous Matt.

If you're going to accuse someone of a HATE CRIME, back it up with more than "They deleted a band account, and the guys in that band happen to be gay". It doesn't matter if they are an individual or a corporation. And I gave alternate and much more believeable reasons for such a deletion.

So, not sure how this is fascist, to request that journalism(even blog journalism should have some rules) be accountable and not stoop to rumour-monging.

"they ought to have a policy where they are able to *temporarily* disable any site they want to"

I totally agree with you there RT! I'm not a fan of their deletion policy myself...

Myspace is becoming harder to use, filled with spam bots and looks just plain ugly.

My account was taken over a couple months ago by someone using it to spam people. I no longer use it.

Don't worry soon it will go the way of Friendster. Nice knowing you Myspace!

Also agreed. When I first started using it, it was great for bands. Now, no one reads invites, and its constant spam. And since I am very sson leaving music, I probably will leave Myspace as well.

Matt Thomas,

I work for CensorSpace.com and would like to talk to with you about this article, please e-mail me at censorspace@gmail.com.

Thank you!

Homophobia / Accusations Aside,

The Point is that MySpace is in too much of a position of Power.

I should know.

As someone with a band profile that was deleted without warning, I totally disagree with MySpace's deletion policies, regardless of the reason.

After years of work put into my space, it was deleted without question, warning, communication of any kind, and no appeal process whatsoever, as MySpace is "too big" to talk to the little guys when we email: "what the fuck happened to my space? what can I do about it?"

and the answer from the resounding silence is "Not a Thing!"

They need to have a warning system, so that you can change whatever offends them, and keep your account !

They also have Unpublished daily sending limits, which they can delete u for.

Hello, Publish them if you mean them!

Also, TO BE REPORTED AS SPAM IS BULLSHIT (I believe I was), while my site had/has NOTHING for sale on it, how can I possibly be Spam?. I sent out non-commercial art-invites to my space, locale people, to see if they might want to hear some free music on my space, and to possibly connect with my free live shows.

Reporting a Struggling, Starving Artist, Musician as spam is Simply Cruel, Totally Selfish and Not Understanding in the least of the Artist's position.

So FUCK MySpace's Non-Communication Standpoint !

BUT ALSO :

FUCK all the weakling myspace users out there who have to report "Spam",

CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MAILBOX !!!

If ya dig an invite or message from a band, check it out, if ya don't, Don't !

It takes one click of a button to Delete !!!

I've got a personal space too, and understand from the invites I receive there, that IT IS NO BIG DEAL TO SIMPLY IGNORE AN INVITE OR MESSAGE!

BTW Can't MySpace focus its Deletion efforts on all that shamelessly commmercial Porn bullshit that floats around the supposedly pg-13 myspace, rather than going after fledgeling Indie Musical Artists !?!?!?!?!?!

Good Luck to All Artists out there !
May something new come along for us All !!!

-TMDK
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest, my new space is here if ya like:

MySpace.Com/MusicalDrumKey

UH OH did I just Spam this board ?!?
I better watch out ! LOL

PEACE

This profile supporting gay marriage has 180,000 friends.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=53098776

You're barking up the wrong tree here.. you probably got deleted for spamming or something.

I'm with Broken Engine on this one. This post should not have been published.

If true, it means that I have to take down my MySpace account, because I won't have anything to do with a predjudiced site.

If false, it means that I can no longer support Kids On TV because they're making baseless and irresponsible accusations.

This sort of post should not appear without there being much more research done.

Some of these comments strike me as rather ridiculous.

Clearly this is an opinion piece and the speculations, assumptions, and unknowns within seem to be rather transparently delivered.

Also, what ever happened to reading an opinion piece, doing your own additional reading and research, and then forming your own educated opinion?

I never knew a blog entry had to be 100% proven to be post worthy, and never take blog (or any media entry) as fact This entry calls for action and investigation on what appears to be a problem worthy of further attention.

Follow the article links, they actually seem to point to a real problem.

Jro,

I don't necessarily agree that blog posts should be allowed to post whatever they want, but I understand thats the nature of the beast. Again, this is a pretty serious accusation, regardless of who it's coming from or directed to. The internet has always been someplace where you can anonymously slander someone else, no matter how you feel about it.

But BlogTO, in my mind, is something more than just a personal Blog. I treat like I would any other news source. Truly, I come here and TOist before I go anywhere else to get updated on the news. So, I think the editors should hold their columnists to some level of journalistic integrity, and that includes doing some fact checking before throwing out possibly baseless accusations. If this had just been posted on Matt's personal blog, then whatever...

Apparently this attitude makes me a fascist. Or it means Matt needs to bone up on his political philosophy. Either or. ;)

There are limits to what can decently appear in an opinion piece. Some accusations cause injury just by being made and, as such, they require a higher standard of evidence.

For example:

If I were to say that (*insert name*) is a pedophile because he spent time alone with children, that would be seen as an irresponible hatchet job.

This is the same sort of thing.

"This is the same sort of thing."

That's not an appropriate analogy. This article is speculating that a corporate web empire may be selectively deleting accounts without explanation or recourse, and possibly because of political views.

I don't think Matt is smearing a person's name based on baseless allegations.

You're talking about a difference in scale - not one of quality. If there is no explanation, why immediatly jump to one?

And why should there be recourse unless MySpace promises recourse in its terms of service?

And it should be noted that I gave an actual name in my example. Though clearly labelled as an example, it was "censored".

Do I have recourse? Should I?

Googlebots can't read tone or context and I'd rather not see anyone's name wrongly associated with pedophilia.

That's why I edited your comment, and why I also sent you the same explanation by email.

Cheers,
Jerrold

Good thing I didn't jump to the wrong conclusion and start making wild accusations then:)

I feel the need to say that deleting someone's MySpace account is not a Hate Crime. The difference between a Hate
Crime and discrimination is usually sadly violence. Violence is a direct act with accountability deletion is however a casual act with no clear person to point the finger at. Even if the accusations are proved beyond a shadow of a doubt it's a private site that has no responsibility to anyone but it's users should know what they are associating and dealing with. They've become the only game in town and that's scary.

I'm not accusing MySpace of a hate crime I'm bringing up accusations of possible homophobia as part of a bigger problem based on a handful of accounts by people who joined after the FOX buy out and are usually activist, left wing, radical and anti-american.

A pattern is always worth checking out and like I said blogs and the internet are a perfect forum for such things and I'll gladly retract any comments if only the faceless giant would speak up.

As far as i'm concerned the fact that Murdoch is a huge homophobe is enough to sour me on MySpace and their agenda...*cough* FOX News... would anyone say that it's an unbiased source of journalism with no slant based on the owners ideals? Check out the documentary OutFoxed and see how far they go to censor things in the FOX world. Throw in the hypocritical nature of MySpace "rules" and hey that's a debate.

I could have simply talked about that but the ongoing accusations of homophobia on top of it now coming from a local artist is so much more relevant. That's called a hook.

As far as the comments so far about Jefree Star and the gay marriage profiles being left alone.
Jefree was around post FOX in the early days of MySpace, has an insane number of die hard friends and tours supporting MySpace. So that seems pretty conflicted.

And you I'm sure there's nothing sexually suggestive about the Gay Marriage profile on top of the fact that deleting a profile so mainstream and overtly political is something clearly they couldn't get away with. I'm not just saying Gay content here I'm saying queer, radical, political and sexual as well. It's the sexually suggestive personal opinion factor that really makes my brow furrow when it comes to choices made by MySpace staff and how they deal with potential complaints.

Even throwing out the queer factor the fact were becoming so dependent on a system that refuses to work with us and could easily get away with silencing us is SCARY and worth talking about.

These accusations aren't baseless. They are based on a group of queer people in conjunction with other activists who have had their profiles deleted. Given the vague policies I saw an opening for exploitation of grassroots individuals and brought it up I also I wanted to remind the public that Murdoch is a prick and for all the kids who won't shop at the Gap or buy Nike shoes who live and die for MySpace I wonder why we can't hold internet based companies to the same standards as we used to hold to everything in our consumer conscious Adbusters generation.

And please to everyone stop with the spamming accusations.
Not ever single person who has experienced what they think was censorship has hundreds of friends and spent the day spamming. That's an easy out and it's their ability to be vague and brush people off that very way that is part of the problem.

I wanted to and will do more and more research on the subject and bring up what I find. But why wait when all I ask for is a response to a growing complaint. I'm not as interested in finger pointing as I am in opening up a dialogue.

I can't prove it was or wasn't the case. But I have read and heard things that point to a potential part of a big problem and some of you seem to just say Hey no way that's way off base and throws MySpace's own vague policy back at the issue.

The plot is thickening too. There's more to come concerning a *gasp* vague new response from MySpace and huge support for KOTV from the very indie artists MySpace was attempting to purchase rights from. Stay Tuned.

HAHA ok easy boys.

Jerrold, I see your point, but I think I've made mine as well. I respect you & BlogTO, so I kind of expect more meat to the articles before they're published. I mean, if the argument "It's only a blog, so why should there be integrity" is agreed to, then fine, but I think BlogTO can be much more than that. Y'know?

Excellent Matt, I look fwd to it.

Oh P.S.

Check out this article about MySpace hackers... sounds exciting

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,129933-pg,1/article.html

and to Ryan I can only hope that wasn't my name... :)

But in all fairness I'm sure you could make accusations of pedophilia if I made it known publically I was a member of NAMBLA. Sure that doesn't mean I've done anything but if it came out someone who was around children alot was a member well that's worth mentioning and asking for an explanation.

Only Murdoch and his company don't have to explain anything even though he's publically denounced everything left including queers.

It wasn't your name Matt. After all, what happens in Vegas . . . :)

I don't think his quote was tantamount to admitting NAMBLA membership. Besides, he's said worst things about communism and still does business in China. At the end all the day, all Rupert cares about it getting your money into his pocket.

Maybe I was just excited I was important enough to slander j/k

But I understand that Rupert just wants his money but if you look at programming choices and what not it matches his views more often then not. Sure it's not a NAMBLA card but it's something to keep in mind when we make choices.

YES!!! BlogTO should uphold itself to the journalistic integrity of other news organizations.

LIKE FOX!!!!!

or CNN?

Matt, really you need to aim a little higher in your moral approach to blogging. Take O'Reiley as your mentor.

Really, I read this blog post and saw nothing of what Matt has been accused of. He is reporting other people's concerns, which may or may not be legit and I think he left it fairly open with "a brief email could clear this all up". Hardly as sensational as most nightly news programs. I think the rabidness of the brouhaha stirred up by the few is rather silly.

Come ON! It's not like when Fox bought myspace, WE DIDN'T ALL SEE IT COMING???

Unless MySpace.com comes out (lol) and makes a public statement regarding profile deletions, everything is hearsay. No need to boycott myspace, no need to boycott KOTV. The band is obviously frustrated; they used that site for EVERYTHING, and to have all that work utterly erased is one fuck of a pisser.

btw, I'm Ryan C of BlogTO, not sure if the other ryan commenting is one of the 40 other Ryans on BTO or not.

Regarding our journalistic integrity, every single member of BTO does what they do because they enjoy it, not because it's a full time gig with dental benefits. Specifically, we often blog for the site in our spare time, or during lunch breaks while working our 9-5's. We often do not have the time and especially often not have the resources to full get all the details before making a post. We don't have an inside man at Parliament, nor do we have moles feeding us info from Exxon. We work with what we're given. I was planning on posting about this topic before I found out Matt had decided to do it, and looking things over, I probably wouldn't have done much different. If anything, posting about the event in any way shape or form HAS in fact stirred discussion, as well as brought more facts and ideas out of the woodwork. This is why we blog; to stir discussion with the most vocal of our readership. You can't please everyone, but with BlogTO at least you can tell us why you specifically are not pleased at all!

To contrast, Facebook has lately been doing a bit of over-deletion of user accounts, and for no good reason deleted my best friend's profile, which was totally for personal use and one which she'd spent quite a bit of time building up. Really pissed us both off, but a simple bit of email communication to the admins and *snap* it was undeleted in full. MySpace, on the other hand, doesn't really give a shit about their users... frankly, that was obvious from the first day that thrown-together mess of a site went online, and I've never seen anything to indicate any different... it's a pile of 'features' with no consideration of users at all, it's designed to attract people, not actually offer them anything worthwhile.

Do keep your crappy band off my Facebook tho, plzthx. (KOTV are awesome, I just mean 'your crappy band' in general.)

Well thanks for the show of support guys that was totally two seconds away from being an online group hug.

The Facebook method of addressing deletions is pretty good proof of the point that Myspace really does not care about their users or how they are percieved because it can be done right on a large scale.

Check out www.censorspace.com, they reference this article and more accounts of censorship, artistic and commerical, including an article in the New York Times about the coding block issue.

On the KOTV news front...apparently the KOTV European Manager who was sending out press releases about the incident was told to stop by MySpace Germany upon which he said Hell no. After the KOTV incident interupted a music liesencing talk between MySpace and an a group who is very close with KOTV, MySpace Germany sent a letter to MySpace LA asking for a response. Upon which they sent the kids ANOTHER standard faceless email stating "We are not at liberty to discuss individual deletions"...who the hell does PR for these guys ....anyways the battle rages on.
Anyone have any new stories.

"You may have question marks everywhere, but your article is quite clear in the fact that you are accusing myspace of homophobia. The question marks seem almost like a hedge. I think the article is unfounded and required a WHOLE lot more researching and evidence to support your claim.
If myspace were deleting successful and high profile gay's, explain Jeffree Star.
I hate to be an apologist, but i just think you guys have jumped the gun, to put it mildly.
"

EVERYONE:
JUST BECAUSE JEFFREE STAR DRESSES IN DRAG DOES NOT MEAN HE'S GAY.
JEFFREE STAR HAS NEVER OPENLY IDENTIFIED AS GAY...IN FACT HE HAS MORE TIES TO SKINHEADS AND SHADY PUNK BANDS THAN ANYONE IN THE LGBT COMMUNITY.
ANYONE EVER CONSIDER THAT HE MIGHT BE MOCKING GAYS?
HIM NOT BEING DELETED NOT RELATED TO THIS POST.

THEY WON....
BUT NO EXPLANATION
HAS ANYONE HEARD OF THIS HAPPENING EVER??????
From KOTV :
Myspace has restored the deleted Kids on TV account. This comment is from that account. We have never heard of this happening to anyone. Has anyone heard of this? We haven't received any communication from them. We still don't know why it was deleted originally so we don't know what we should remove from the site to make it acceptable to them. Over time we are going to try and consolidate all the Kids on TV pages so there is only one place to go (not the censorship one of course).

We are totally mytified about this. Obviously the stink we ALL raised TOGETHER caused this to happen. Now the question, what will it take to get the pages of the other artist/activists back? We're going to continue to raise this issue of course and promote the censorship page. We are absolutely dedicated to the development of a community forum to discuss how to handle content censorship on myspace. We want dialog between users on myspace and myspace staff on this issue to make the situation better. Until that time, please post your ideas on what they could do to change policy.

I think it is interesting that your account got re-stored, when my account was deleted a few weeks ago, I got the same email saying that my account could not be restored. My band had 25,000+ friends, and over 161,000 audio plays in the past year and a half. I had to restart my networking, and I wonder if it was censorship due to the political nature of my music. p.s. I think Maggie is or was in Kids on TV, I know of this band.

I tried posting video(s)/bulletins on Concentration camps in USA, For the life of me they wouldn't post, I tried like 3 different videos like 10 times not once would they post..then when i tried posting something of a different subject it worked..I came to the conclusion myspace is mass-censoring. I have a eerie feeling those camps will be in use in the near future...

I myself am fighting Myspace censorship and it has gotten to the point that I have had to seek legal action against them. After they kept sending back form letter autoreplies and refused to answer telephone calls or emails or even regular letters I had to file for an injunction forcing Myspace to unblock my email and allow me to return to the site. With the evidence I have at hand there is no way that a court will rule in their favour either.
And if you're worried about your sexuality, don't: I am a heterosexual who himself has found himself a target of Myspace censorship. Politics: I consider myself to the right of conservative, and I can tell you, there are people who get dumped from Myspace for expressing their opposition to certain groups, like homosexuals and Muslims, and certainly other conservatives have also fallen victim to Myspace censorship...occasionally by other conservatives too, but often by those with an irrational partisan hatred of the right. The virulent leftists also act to encourage Myspace censorship and I can point to a number of examples.
If you don't like what is said on someone's profile, and it is not patently illegal in content, just move on...leave that profile alone and find someone or something more interesting.

PS I forgot to mention, the whole point of my last post is, You are NOT ALONE. If the Myspace censors came after you and then they came after me who will they target next? This is why they need to be reined in --- by the courts or even by the US Congress if need be --- to make them stop arbitrarily censoring its users.