MySpace Politics

I have lost one of my "top eight" MySpace friends, for the moment. Barack Obama's campaign has wrestled control of the MySpace page being operated by one of his supporters after they decided that with more than four times more "friends" than the other candidates, it would be best if the page were run by his actual campaign staff. A guy named Joe Anthony had been running the very successful page, but Obama's staff was concerned about messages going out under Obama's name, even though they were satisfied with how the page was operating and even had password access.

Joe Anthony demanded $49,000 for his hard work on the page and Obama's campaign staff refused, ultimately winning the page back in arbitration with News Corp, although losing the 160,000 friends of the page in the change. Anthony is reportedly "heartbroken" at the "bullying" of the campaign staff and says that he will no longer support Obama. I don't know about $49,000, but it seems like some compensation is due Anthony, even if he started the page without their agreement.