May 02, 2007
Obama's MySpace Mayhem
Barack Obama just lost a whole lot of MySpace "friends" -- or at least one of them. The user who once voluntarily managed his MySpace page for more than two years has accused the campaign and MySpace of taking over the Web site and deleting the former profile.
Joe Anothony, whose profile says he’s a 29-year-old from the L.A. area, writes his side of the story on his personal MySpace blog:
The campaign, with the help of Myspace, have seized control of the profile without my consent, and are using it to refer traffic to a new profile they created. I have been blocked from having access to the profile. The campaign will probably have a different perspective on the events leading up to this, but until my personal profile is deleted, I'm going to take a stand on this.
Anthony seemed like a special situation for campaigns. It’s rare to have a draft movement volunteer keep control over such a public outlet like this after the campaign gets underway. Under its terms of service agreement, MySpace does retain the right to take over a profile if necessary.
Obama’s profile is now under the control of his campaign, which had to start from zero to make MySpace friends this week, but has already amassed more than 13K "friends."
Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki gave TechPresident.com's Micah Sifry, who had the story first, this statement:
There is an incredible amount of support for Obama's candidacy on MySpace and our goal is to ensure that we are being as responsive as possible to the community. Because MySpace and the community treated the work as official and due to sheer volume, our campaign staff wanted make sure users had direct access to the campaign. We support the MySpace communty, and look forward to building our relationship.
Posted at 09:01 AM
Comments
MySpace has both Groups and Profiles. It's unfortunate how it turned out, but Joe Anthony should have started a supporter group on MySpace in the first place. imo MySpace shouldn't allow 'unofficial' profiles of well-known people. It's confusing.
Tom J | 05.02.07 11:01 AM
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Joe Anthony gets to keep his 160,000 list under a different myspace site name. Myspace has told him to pick another name for his site and continue running it if he wants. Obama gets to use his official myspace url address which belongs to Barack Obama per Myspace rules. This is more than fair to me.
ten10 | 05.02.07 11:15 AM
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while myspace does reserve the right to take away a profile, i think it was disgusting how the obama campaign bullied someone who devoted so much of his time to building a myspace network.
it seems like his "washington outsider" rhetoric doesn't apply to regular people. this is very disappointing - i'm now voting for edwards.
jose | 05.02.07 11:58 AM
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I'll tell you what's really funny - check out TechPresident's graph on MySpace friends. Obama now has fewer friends than Hillary and Edwards.
http://www.techpresident.com/scrape_plot/myspace
james | 05.02.07 01:00 PM
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Seems like the guy was working as an enthusiastic volunteer, realized how valuable his (explicitly volunteer) work was, and demanded 40 grand or he'd take it away.
Not exactly legit.
Oh well. Obama got screwed on the media take on it, but they didn't do anything wrong...
Alex Forshaw | 05.02.07 01:32 PM
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"it seems like his "washington outsider" rhetoric doesn't apply to regular people. this is very disappointing - i'm now voting for edwards."
I agree it's pretty disgusting. What right does the obama campaign have to bully someone around like?
As for your second comment, I was voting for Edwards in the first place anyway. I prefer real substance over Sen. Obama's 2008 Audacity Book Tour.
Cameron | 05.02.07 02:32 PM
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The move may be supported by MySpace rules but it is still an imoral one.
Obama has gathered millions and he could use some money for someone who has rooted for and helped him long time before he became a presidential hopeful.
How many millions will Obama spend for a few seconds appearance in tv. He has taken for granted that 160,000 fans that this rebel page has gathered will stay with him anyway and he will spend a dime for them.
And yes, I would vote for Edwards too, if I were not concerned over his lack of international affairs knowledge and experience. I wish I could combine Edwards and Biden in one person.
Marc | 05.03.07 09:32 AM
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New politics indeed. Use a volunteer at your campaigns leisure then take away all of his work when it best suits you. Obama doesn't care about the little guy any more than the next politician. He doesn't understand middle america. He is just another ass who thinks he deserves power. Vote no one, 2008.
No | 05.03.07 10:56 AM
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Regardless of the legality, I believe that this whole situation was handled very poorely by the Obama campaign, and this is just the sort of bad press that can potentially snowball, and have a real affect on younger voters. Myspace is a real community of a demographic that is very hard to reach in the traditional sense, and I think that the Obama campaign needs to be very careful about how all of this is handled.
-Chris Ho
Chris Ho | 05.03.07 07:24 PM
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@Alex Forshaw
I don't know if you can comprehend English or not, but he didn't demand $40K. Obama's people wanted him out and offered to buy him out. They told him to name a price. He did name his price and Obama's people didn't like the price. Instead of countering with another offer, they acted like pirates and yanked the rug from under him with the help from MySpace. There is no demand nor blackmail.
It may end up being resolved with MySpace offering him an alternate URL, but that is MySpace's solution. Thus, when you praise the solution, thank MySpace. Obama has nothing to do with the fairness of the solution and he still has not apologized for seizing other people's work. Shame on Obama.
wallace | 05.04.07 12:49 PM
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From
Contray to popular belief the Obama campaingn
did NOT bully Anthony. See website and quotes from Anthony below.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1558648/20070503/index.jhtml
Anthony, who works as a paralegal in Los Angeles, said he had been maintaining the site on his own since 2004, building it up to the point where it had 100,000 friends and incubating a lively debate about all things Obama. He began working with the campaign in March, but the relationship grew rocky and when, according to him, MySpace began having Obama's profile randomly pop up as a "Cool New Person" last month. The number of friends jumped to 160,000 within a matter of weeks, drastically increasing Anthony's workload.
"We'd previously spoke about an agreement, and at that time there was no money involved — I wasn't asking for any money," Anthony said. "[But] our relationship started to go south because of it — namely because they did this [deal] with MySpace without even telling me or warning me. And even when I asked them about it they weren't too straightforward with me."
So one night, at the peak of his frustration, Anthony said he e-mailed the campaign and said he couldn't continue working on the site unless he was paid. "Not because I wanted money, but [because] I had a full-time job and I have a very active life and this took over all of that," he explained. "It was affecting my job, my ability to focus on my work. I had no personal life. You know, it seemed absolutely reasonable."
**********************************************
Was Anthony right to lock the Barak Obama campaign out of the website he did not own, and then demand money?
Anthony says he was upset that My Space decided to list Obama as "cool new friend without telling him." I've seen Clinton and McCain listed as cool new friends.
Keep in my Anthony never paid for the website or asked for Barak Obama's for permission to use his name. Anthony also turned down a full time job offered by the campaign and said he preferred to remain a volunteer. Then he cuts off access to the website, and demands $49,000 to access to website owned by My Space.
Not cool.
Mr. Unite Us | 05.05.07 04:14 AM
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Having official campaign's come on heavy-handed against grassroots fans and organizers is not unigue to the Obama campaign. I have seen it in many other campaigns as well. Organizers work their butt off, sometimes years before someone is an official candidate, the campaign hires a national staff, and the heavy-hand comes down.
This situation might could have been avoided had Joe Anthony posted a disclaimer on his page that stated "Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee" or "not affiliated in any way with Barack Obama."
All Draft committees are required by the FEC to use the term "Draft" when referring to a potential candidate. People cannot go around using a candidate's name without saying something to let folks know they do not represent the campaign.
I didn't view the MySpace page so I don't know if any disclaimers existed to distinquish between a fan or supporter and Barack Obama himself.
The page name "Barack Obama" would present a problem without a disclaimer of some sort. Still...this matter could have been handled better by the Obama campaign. Frankly, if I had a campaign come down hard on me for organizing grassroots support, I'd be tempted to just delete the page, along with all friends and supporters, and let the campaign build their own starting all over. It looks like that's pretty much what happened since Anthony was allowed to keep his friends list.
As for this causing people to vote for John Edwards, give me a break. Running a povery center while getting $400 haircuts shows a real lack of judgement too. Obama's people should have forseen how negative this would look to all those grassroots supporters working on his behalf. Edwards should have known how phony he would look with that $400 haircut too.
Obama should have control over his own name in some form although reaching an accomondation with Anthony would have been in Obama's best interest.
erat | 05.05.07 11:22 AM
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