MySpace Freedom of Speech Initiative

To Tom Anderson and anyone else responsible for the operation of Myspace.com,





PURPOSE: This petition is created to help improve the quality of the experience for the users on Myspace.com.





DEMANDS:


1. The complete banning of account deletion.


2. The ability to ignore users in the chatrooms.





REASONS:


Demand #1. I have had my account deleted in the past, I was not issued a warning OR a reason as to why. When I complained to superior officials, I was ignored- probably due to the fact that they get many messages a day. Coincidentally, I was arguing with a moderator in the forums- and 20 minutes later I could not log in. That is, if I daresay - abuse of power. This system is flawed, the site has well over 20 moderators I believe, and I'm not sure if every one of them can delete accounts- but I do suspect it. These moderators are simple human beings, like any other. They should not have the right or power to instantly wipe a user's account from the system- which essentially destroys that person's personal messages, comments, the friends they've spent time collecting, the group that person has started, the profile they've spent hours customizing, and the blog entries that person may have spent a lot of time writing. These power-tripping individuals need to be regulated- and I've seen some say things along the lines of "If I don't like you, I'll delete you" or "Don't try to argue with the mods, we'll just delete you."





My proposed solution is to institute a system of account SUSPENSION in place of account deletion. This system will prevent a user from messaging any one else except moderators, commenting, etc. That way, all the things the person has spent time doing on the site is not wiped out with the click of a button, but all of their privileges are taken away. Also there should be an attached note specifically stating a term of service violation... and then the user should be able to appeal to a super-moderator with good judgment. I have extensive experience administrating a forum... and this is not the way to run things. This is why, despite having millions of users, the Myspace forums are not very popular (I've ran a forum that acquired 120,000+ posts in a period of 2 months, no single category on Myspace can claim that, and my forum had 2000 users, do the math). There is too much restriction on the freedom of speech.





Demand #2 - This one is rather simple and isn't as important as demand #1. A simple "ignore" button in the chat rooms would be very useful, I've heard complaints from many people about it... there's virtually NO protection at all from spammers and flooders who wish to disrupt the flow of conversation. Please consider installing this feature into the chatrooms.





CONCLUSION: Ban account deletion and replace it with account suspension. Install an "ignore" feature into the chatrooms. This petition has been inspired by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.





-Kilay


www.myspace.com/kilay