(no subject)

[theweaselking]

MySpace, owned by Republican propaganda magnate and admitted homophobe Rupert Murdoch, disallows "Gay" as an acceptable sexual orientation for new accounts and prohibits changing orientation on existing profiles to "gay".

Comments

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

So, like, did we need another reason for refusing to start a MySpace account? I would have thought not.

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

I read a few stories about this, and because "lesbian" and "bisexual" are still available as options, I'd almost think this was a technical glitch, rather than a plot by Murdoch. Just sayin'.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You're not thinking like a homophobe. Chicks with chicks? Hawt. Esepcially if they let you join in. It's all-male "teh icky buttsex" that's wrong and evil and prohibited by God.

And as glitches go, that's a pretty damn unlikely one.

[mazarinade.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I actually had a long-dormant account on that site and just checked: it is possible to change a profile to 'Gay'.

Other hand, I didn't know Murdoch was involved before now, so I also spent some time removing my profile.

I don't know what the score is with new accounts, though.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It was happening. Apparently now the option says "Gay/Lesbian".

[mazarinade.livejournal.com]

Well, if they've backed down, that figures. Rightwingers never really have any backbone, if you push back and they don't have overwhelming force on their side.

[entropymagnet.livejournal.com]

Tom also posted a bulletin saying:

"seems like there's more rumors than usual that i'm closing the site or going to start charging for myspace. not true foo'! don't believe what you read in bulletins and rumors.. if there was something important to tell you, i would post an announcement.

oh and some people have asked about the missing orientation option for "gay" on edit profile. that's a bug that should be fixed later tonight... no, myspace does not hate gay people.. duh."

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

It works on mine. Says "Gay/Lesbian". "Bi" is there, too.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Apparently there's a message on a lot of profiles saying that it was just a bug.

(If they eliminated "gay" and meant to change "lesbian" to "gay/lesbian" but forgot, that's interesting. Certainly going to cause problems for searches based on "lesbians in X area" in the future, though.)

[miz-geek.livejournal.com]

Well, presumably gay/lesbian + female would work.

I suspect Rupert Murdoch likes money and power more than he hates gays.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

Precisely.

[paradoxicmotion.livejournal.com]

I'm going to vote for incompetence, rather than evil, despite Murdoch owning MySpace.

The creators of MySpace are clearly a few kinds of incompetent (just take a look at their fucking website!). Their incompetence is magnified by being one of the most popular sites on Das Intarweb.

It is far more plausible to me that they screwed up. Surely there's a wish to push a political agenda on MySpace by News Corp. However, if/when it appears, it will not be something as silly as possible sexual orientation settings.

Nevermind that doing something that would cause a non-trivial chunk of their users to revolt, leave, etc.... I'm sure they like money WAY more than they like sticking it to homosexuals by taking away their ability to be out on MySpace.

[harmonatrix.livejournal.com]

According to of a friend of mine who has a my space account...a notice was posted that it was a technical glitch that is supposed to be fixed soon.
Apparently, the owner(s) were very pissed about the rumor.

[atlasimpure.livejournal.com]

That's not true, it was a bug in the system that they posted about and were attempting to correct.