Obama seizes profile on MySpace, loses friends
Cory Bergman May 2nd, 2007
Three years ago, Joe Anthony created a MySpace page for Barack Obama. He gave the Obama campaign access to page — which had 160,000 friends — but the campaign wanted full control. Frustrated, Anthony changed the password and asked for some serious cash ($39,000+) to compensate him for his work on the page over the years. But the Obama campaign complained to MySpace, which bumped Anthony — and all the friends! — and gave full control to the campaign. But you gotta give Obama a little credit: he personally called Anthony to express his appreciation for all his work and support.
10 Comments Add your own
1. Chaos45i | May 3rd, 2007 at 12:24 am
Barack Obama has no sense of fairness. Watched the April 26, 2007 first democratic debate and only two candidates ever mentioned anything about equality or Race discrimination and neither of them were Barack Obama. I have been calling Barack Obama a racist and invite him to sue if I’m acting in bad faith. I say there is a reason a former civil rights attorney does not run for president with civil rights as a main issue and if you are a Hispanic American from the state of Illinois this concerns you. It can be verified having already been placed on repeated formal notice Barack Obama has taken no action to stop or even call for any investigation into IDHR & EEOC’s discriminatory practices that mistreat, harm , and prevent Illinois Hispanic American complainants from fairly & fully exercising their legal right to assert the exact same claim of discrimination based on RACE that other nonHispanics are allowed to by IDHR & EEOC. There can be no dispute that since 2004 I was and still now am not being allowed to assert & memorialize a claim of discrimination based on RACE on formal official “IDHR & EEOC” charges of discrimination with IDHR & EEOC focusing instead on manipulating the charging process by IDHR & EEOC repeatedly pressuring me to sign (upon threat of dismissing my charges) only IDHR & EEOC prepared “IDHR & EEOC” charges of discrimination in which IDHR & EEOC never memorialized my clear unambiguous claim of discrimination based on RACE that I have always maintained against Hormel Foods Corporation & UFCW since 2004. Even to date IDHR & EEOC have not provided me any state law or state rule and/or federal law or federal rule that excludes and/or prohibits any Illinois Hispanic American citizen from asserting and memorializing a claim of discrimination based on RACE on formal official “IDHR & EEOC” charges of discrimination at the agency IDHR and/or at the agency EEOC. Despite bringing this to Barack Obama’s attention Barack Obama and his office having full knowledge and understanding has continued to ignore the fact that I, one of his Illinois Hispanic American constituents, is unlawfully being treated unequally by IDHR & EEOC. IDHR & EEOC (For instance but not limited to) has attempted to dissuade me, an Illinois Hispanic American citizen, from filing charges, misrepresenting facts in the public record, and IDHR & EEOC is excluding & denying me , an Illinois Hispanic American citizen, a fair & full opportunity to memorialize my assertion of discrimination based on RACE on formal official “IDHR & EEOC” charges during the charge process without IDHR & EEOC ever providing in a clear straightforward honest manner an actual written legal justification that shows under what actual discriminatory Illinois law and/or federal law allows IDHR & EEOC to exclude any Illinois Hispanic American citizen from fairly & fully exercising their legal right to assert the exact same claim of discrimination based on RACE that other nonHispanics are allowed to & enjoy as matter of record at IDHR & EEOC. As a result of Barack Obama’s failure to insure that his Illinois Hispanic American constituents are not being prevented from fairly & fully exercising their legal right to assert discrimination based on RACE at the agencies IDHR & EEOC and Barack Obama’s failure to even call for an investigation to immediately redress this serious matter Barack Obama is effectively aiding and abetting Race discrimination, obstructing justice, and shielding Hormel Foods Corporation & UFCW from ultimately being held accountable for Hormel Foods Corporation and UFCW (for instance but not limited to) violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by subjecting me an Illinois Hispanic American citizen to discrimination based on RACE. The fact and truth of the matter is Barack Obama can not deny that I one of his constituents, an Illinois Hispanic American citizen, brought to his attention that there is substantial evidence about IDHR & EEOC interfering with my right for an investigation into my claim of discrimination based on RACE against Hormel Foods & UFCW from ever being conducted to date. Because I , an Illinois Hispanic American citizen, have the audacity to believe I am equal under the Laws of the United States Of America I refuse to believe IDHR & EEOC, Hormel Foods Corporation & UFCW (Despite Barack Obama’s inaction) are above the law and will not ultimately be held accountable for the above mentioned actions.
2. Safran | May 3rd, 2007 at 6:42 am
That’s what I was going to say.
That, and - way to alienate the grass roots, guys.
3. Politics 2.0 | May 3rd, 2007 at 6:45 am
Latest Media Coverage of Obama MySpace Story
Excerpts and links from the New York Times, TechPresident, Washington Post and Huffington Post
Alex Hammer
Politics 2.0
4. Don Day | May 3rd, 2007 at 8:57 am
Is that the longest comment in LR history? Or… at least the longest without a paragraph break?
5. Anonymous | May 3rd, 2007 at 10:14 am
How much are you supposed to get paid to register someone else’s name on MySpace and act as a middleman for all their content? “Maintaining” a MySpace page doesn’t take hours a day. MySpace does the hosting. Copying and pasting other people’s content and clicking “Accept” to every friend request isn’t exactly skilled labor. Maybe the Obama campaign should have just paid the guy whatever he wanted so he didn’t go negative, but I don’t really see why they needed to.
6. Pffff | May 3rd, 2007 at 11:25 am
Where can I get the cliff notes for the first comment?
7. ohigotchya | May 3rd, 2007 at 6:14 pm
imagine if that was what happened for dot coms? Some lunatic conservative has had my dot com for ages! Dammit! That would be serious incentive to become a big time politician!
8. Kelly | May 4th, 2007 at 11:38 am
I wished I could get paid creating a myspace for someone. It’s so simple!
9. Ethan | May 4th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I guess you guys have never tried to build and maintain a myspace profile with 150k+ friends. It takes time to build and update the page, approve the friends requests, moderate the comments and answer the emails.
Based upon some other social media campaigns I have seen, $39k for 3 years worth of work is not too exorbitant - Thats only 13k per year. He probably would have taken much less and saved Obamama a couple of headaches.
10. Cruz | July 31st, 2007 at 5:23 pm
The first comment is too long to be effective, but here’s my 2cents worth: Barack Obama need not speak about what is obvious…since his presence alone is changing the future of American Politics much like Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presence is.
As far as taking the site over on myspace. Every public servant is aware that threats & damage to your image can be minimize if you control what fronts your name & makes use of your personal resources. As far as I’m concerned Barack Obama did the right thing on both counts, ‘Tom’ from myspace did the right thing & most people will understand no matter how ‘good’ the man’s intentions were there was no way the site could have been controlled by anyone else.
If the man wanted to control the site, he should have put the site up with HIS name & resources and within that scope had a tribute to Barack Obama, but that is not what he did. The gracious thing for both parties would be to take the experience with a grain of salt, chalk it up to experience & move on.Peace.
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