Thank You MySpace For Blocking My Site

Brent Jessop - Knowledge Driven Revolution.com
October 19, 2007

I just received an email informing me that Knowledge Driven Revolution.com has been blocked by MySpace.com. Now, I could use this incident for shameless self promotion, or even take some pride in the fact that my little website managed to ruffle a few feathers on the baby toe of the beast. Or, I could try and rally the troops, to mass email MySpace in hopes of getting reinstated (when I used the term mass, I really meant around three or four emails, including my own, I have no delusions of grandeur).

But, instead I decided to respond like an adult who still has some self respect and politely thank MySpace for blocking my site. The whole concept of MySpace (or Facebook or any of these other self profiling websites) makes my skin crawl.

Self Profiling

Two weeks ago I wrote an article about the ridiculous things people are willing to do to themselves if they can do it for free. It doesn't matter what health problems will arise or what freedoms they will sacrifice, as long as it is free they will sign up. Being fallible, I missed an obvious example, MySpace. To correct that oversight, I will elaborate a little here.

About as long as there have been governments, they have been taking inventory of their peasantry or as we are now so tenderly called, human resources. This census helps in the management of this occasionally pesky resource. Even in today's world, there are still some limits to the questions that they can justify asking on a general census (like personal views on politics, who your friends are, the simple thoughts that occupy your mind, etc.). Now, imagine that you could convince people to just voluntarily give that information up and proudly place it for the world to see in a nice standardized format. It is amazing how eagerly people give up their privacy because it is free, and above all else, cool. You mean, like, you don't have a MySpace account? Everybody's doing it.

Just to over stress my point, the Pentagon has developed a system which will make everyone of us into a node in a simulated world and run psychological experiments to help predict how we would react in certain situations.

From an article by Mark Baard:

U.S defense, intel and homeland security officials are constructing a parallel world, on a computer, which the agencies will use to test propaganda messages and military strategies.

Called the Sentient World Simulation, the program uses AI routines based upon the psychological theories of Marty Seligman, among others. (Seligman introduced the theory of “learned helplessness” in the 1960s, after shocking beagles until they cowered, urinating, on the bottom of their cages.)

Yank a country’s water supply. Stage a military coup. SWS will tell you what happens next.

The sim will feature an AR avatar for each person in the real world, based upon data collected about us from government records and the internet.

MySpace Links Have Always Made Me Feel a Little Dirty

If I found out that some degenerate porno site was sending a bunch of viewers to my site, should I be happy that my site traffic is up? Personally, I would prefer my smaller, less aroused, audience instead. The porn link, just like the MySpace link, makes me feel a little dirty.

So, for anyone who has been using MySpace, please, just post your undying love of Britney Spears and maybe a couple of her music videos to confuse the petty snoops who get paid to monitor other people's lives and stop using their free services. And quietly enjoy a little privacy. It is an underappreciated joy these days.

In All Seriousness

In all seriousness, I am just describing the intended use of MySpace. It can be as good an activist tool as any - including my site - and is little different from anything else on the internet. It is a double edged sword, you may be able to spread some useful information but you will be tracked in the process.

Censorship, is something we should not take lightly either. Many people have fought and died for freedom of speech (such as it is now) and we should not just quietly accept any form of censorship. So, any support that can be offered, email or otherwise, to get MySpace to back off a little and let my tiny site be viewed by whomever wises to, would be appreciated.

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