Rupert Murdoch Owns Your Soul -- The Evil Empire Buys MySpace

New America Media, Youth Commentary, Nick Datesman Posted: Nov 30, 2005

Editor's Note: A young man says the publishing magnate's acquisition of MySpace.com, a popular social networking site, is just plain scary.

OAKLAND--If you've ever watched television than you've probably watched something owned by media kingpin Rupert Murdoch. Why? Because Murdoch owns all kinds of American media. Those stupid reality shows you watch? Murdoch owns them. The news you watch every morning? It could be owned by Murdoch and may be edited to fit right-wing Christian views. Murdoch also owns 175 newspapers and 35 American television stations. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. His empire also includes satellite television and magazine and book publishing that reach from the United States to the United Kingdom, Australia and Asia.

But his most recent acquisition might be the scariest. Murdoch just paid $580 million to buy something huge. The social networking Web site MySpace -- "a place for friends" -- is now owned by Murdoch.

I thought it would be a fun thing to make a MySpace page and put up some pictures and talk to some people I know, because a lot of my friends already had MySpace pages. I made my page, with the name "Negative Planetarium," a joke from an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force (if you've seen the episode than you know what it means). I put up a picture of myself and some random photos I took while on a train to Southern Cali. I filled out the little "interest" and "favorites" part of the page. Then I went and searched for some people I knew to add to my "friends" list. Surprisingly, I found tons of people I knew from middle school and high school. But I was even more surprised to see the crazy amount of Nortenos with MySpace pages. I thought that was just special. I suppose gangsters of the 21st century need to rep on the Web now.

Another big community on MySpace are these Asian import models with, like, 5,000 friends. Well not really friends, just guys who like to leave silly comments about how much they would like to have intercourse with the models.

At first I thought MySpace was created by some dude named "Tom" because he was the first "friend" I had on MySpace. But I found out that MySpace is the product of a company called Intermix, and that MySpace is one of the most popular Web sites in the universe. Anyway, the people at Intermix are having a big, phat party right now because Rupert Murdoch just gave them $580 million dollars.

Why would Murdoch want to own MySpace? Well, after that $580 mill purchase he now owns easily accessible lists of millions of people's personal information. He now knows where you live, who your friends are, what your favorite movie, color and television show is. It all sounds kind of trivial, but in the world of marketing and advertising this kind of information is priceless. Not only will this info be used for advertising purposes, but now MySpace is also going to be a marketing place for products. Already when you sign into MySpace, instead of being taken to your own page, you are taken to a page with a ton of advertisements.

I'm starting to get paranoid that some guy in a suit will come outta nowhere and spark up a conversation with me: "Hey Nick, what's up dawg? Yo man, you check out that new Millar arc in the New X men?!" And I'll just sit there and wonder, 'How the hell this suit know my favorite comic book and that I like to be referred to as 'dawg,' like most kids from Oakland?'" Then I'll remember that bastard Rupert Murdoch owns a list of my personal likes and dislikes.

So keep in mind these key questions next time you are posting stuff on the Web: Who will view this, who owns this and who can and WILL use this info?

PNS contributor Nick Datesman, 18, is a writer for YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia. He is a about to graduate from Met West High School in Oakland.


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