Nathan Exposed » MySpace and Obama?

MySpace and Obama?

This story caught my eye, and it really sets the tone for how the internet will be influencing our next election more than it ever has before.

As the story goes, a man named Joe who has wholeheartedly supported Barack Obama started a MySpace page using Barack’s name. It was an unofficial page and it racked up 160,000 friends (it has dropped to 20,000 now). Barack’s team had actually joined up with Joe and they had access to the password so they could go in and add their own content.

So recently Joe changed the password, locking out Barack’s team. That concerned them, so they demanded that Joe hand over ownership of the page. He refused, saying Barack would have to pay $39,000 plus up to $10,000 in fees. That’s $49,000 for a MySpace page.

Barack’s team refused to pay up, and contacted MySpace. Well, Barack won. MySpace provided full access to Barack’s team, so they now own the page.

It’s a really odd situation. We naturally assume that one side is wrong, and the other is right. But in this case, I think they are both a little wrong.

It sounds like bullying for Barack’s team to take over a MySpace page. This guy created the page, and he can do whatever he wants with it. If he doesn’t want Barack’s team to have access, that’s his choice.

This goes back to the rule of supply and demand, which people have used for centuries. Barack’s team had a demand, and Joe could supply it. Maybe this supply wasn’t worth that much money, so they could have negotiated something lower.

I think there was a better way to go about this. It seems like such a silly, insignificant thing to debate about. But if Barack would bully some guy on MySpace, I have to wonder who else he will bully on a larger scale?

I do still like Barack. If I had to vote right now, I would probably still choose him. But luckily we still have over a year to form an opinion… I do think a small story has relevance in the way he goes about things.

Your thoughts?

Wed, May 2, 2007 @ 8:53 pm | Filed in Blogs | Permalink

2 Comments

I could see Myspace telling Joe to change his page name, or even telling him to take Obama’s content off. But awarding the page to Obama?
Besides what’s to stop Obama from just getting his own page? This sounds awfully petty to me. Actually, it sounds like something Hillary would do.
I’m going to start a WWHD campaign.

Posted by DEL on Wed, May 2, 2007 @ 11:25 pm

If Joe had asked for money before giving Obama’s team access, that would have been one thing.

To give them access, take it away, then demand $50,000 for regained access is nothing more than extortion.

I don’t think either side are bullies. I see Joe looking to make money, and Obama’s team trying to protect the candidate’s name in a very public forum. If Joe is truly a supporter of Obama, he would not be asking for $50k.

If this were a private website (not under the MySpace umbrella), I might see it differently, but under the MySpace TOS, there are areas sited to protect people that could easily fall into this scenario: “Attempting to impersonate another Member or person” is reason enough to lose access.

Posted by purpletwinkie on Thu, May 3, 2007 @ 1:16 pm