Something Wicked This Way Comes

Myspace.com, the most popular online gathering place for many high school and college students was just bought by Rupert Murdoch. Knowing Murdoch’s track record, this Australian turned American so he could satisfy US media ownership rules and thus could influence American media, will mine myspace.com for voter preference data to be used to target young people to vote Republican. The following sentence buried at the bottom of this BBC article it the most important detail, especially when you consider how modern election targeting works and how Murdoch has chosen to act in his effort to influence American politics:

And most importantly, Myspace has detailed logs of its users' preferences, online behaviour and personal information.

I hate to see such an online community used by such a Machiavellian. One of my favorite highlights of Murdoch’s manipulation of political behavior is his filling Fox News airtime with talking heads spewing tirades about the filth on TV, while through his selection of programming for Fox has done more to push the media market towards the more tawdry than any other network. It's a truly great example of creating an issue to distract the public from other issues such as corporate welfare, the destruction of the environment, political corruption, fiscal mismanagement, reductions in school loans, etc.