Myspace is a popular social networking site. About two years ago, it was bought by Rupert Murdoch's media empire. I don't know if it sucked before that (probably it did), but this acquisition sort of made the suckage official by instituting (as of 2006) this content ownership rule...
By displaying or publishing (”posting”) any Content, [...] you hereby grant to MySpace.com, a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and through the Services.
You think you own the content? Well, Rupert owns it too!
However, this suckage is about 10 inches of vacuum short of the most recent suck: Myspace admins just went and shut down a 35,000 member atheist and agnostic group.
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) broke the story:
MySpace deleted the 35,000-member "Atheist and Agnostic Group" on Jan. 1, a little more than a month after hackers broke in and renamed the group's site "Jesus Is Love," Bryan Pesta said Wednesday.
MySpace has ignored repeated requests to restore the group's site, including an online petition with more than 500 signatures, said Pesta, who was the group's moderator.
"These actions send a clear message to the 30 million godless people in America that we are not welcome on MySpace," Pesta said.
A MySpace spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.
My sympathies to Prof. Bryan Pesta, a human resources management expert, who was the group administrator. He provides the story on the group and its removal from Myspace here, offering a possible explanation to what happened.
A myspace user group called the “christian crusaders” was responsible for getting many groups deleted back then (including a large pro-abortion group).
Their strategy was to scour myspace looking for profiles and groups they found offensive, and then mass complain to myspace customer service. CS at myspace is very much hit or miss. The crusaders simply kept sending emails till someone at myspace took action (a key I think to what happened recently).
How many people agree with me that such systematic online harassment against ANY group of people sharing the same worldview other than atheists and agnostics would have raised a public outcry? And this is, like, "meh..."
Bottom line. If you have a myspace account, consider asking myspace to delete it and explain to their customer service why. However, be aware that even if they delete it, they still can keep it for all eternity.
UPDATE.
As of now (2:30 pm CST), the atheist and agnostic group page is back up! The pressure from Cleveland Plains Dealer article sure helped... and so did the pressure from several members of this community who talked to Myspace support, I reckon...