MySpace has been touted as almost a Messiah to the music industry over the past year, allowing people the ability to share their favorite artists with friends, listen to bands they love and discover new bands that they may never have heard before. 
Green Tea Monkeys, an indie ska/punk/reggae band from Germany, hoped to tap into MySpace's potential to achieve the success of other once no-name bands like Hawthorn Heights, Hollywood Undead and even Jack White's new baby The Raconteurs -- all were able to capitalize on the social networking site in their rise to prominence.
But what they never thought they would have to do is apologize to their entire fan base for unauthorized racist bulletins post under the band's name. "For us as a little band, it's worse when our fans won't believe in us ... to have to show people that we're not talking sh*t and that they can still believe and trust in what we're saying" they say.
Over the past couple of months, a rash of hacking has taken over MySpace, the most popular Web site since, well, the Web. The scale of the hacks has the MySpace community up in arms and is prompting people to ask when MySpace is going to step up.
The hacks are occurring through the bulletin section of each individual's MySpace profile. The extent of the hack is unknown, but as any MySpace user can tell you, in order to post a bulletin -- whether real or counterfeit - you must have access to an individual's account. That suggests that any and all information that a person has stored within their profile, including personal e-mail addresses, passwords, and e-mails, could be accessible to hackers. 
The counterfeit bulletins causing the biggest uproar are those containing defamatory racial remarks that would make the grand wizard of the KKK blush. It appears that the three most common racist posts are: "I'm Gonna Kill Y'all Ni**as," "F*ck All Y'all Ni**as!," and "Get Out of America You F*ckin Ni**as!"
Each of these appears in the bulletin section -- with the user's name attached as the author of the bulletin. That means that every single one of the user's "friends" receives this information in connection with the owner of the account, who is listed as the author. Horror stories run rampant about the extent to which people have had to defend their character under these circumstances.
There's no way to measure how long the racist impressions will resonate before users have the ability to apologize and set the record straight. But then should MySpace users have to apologize for something like this in the first place?
TMZ attempted to contact MySpace for comment. We were not successful.
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I read the comment from bunnycake and I wanted to say as an African-American and some one who has a Myspace account saying the word NI*** is a SERIOUS problem. If you are so concerened about racial probelems in Africa how do suppose we fix a problem in another continent when the supposedly free greatest country in the world is still having problems with racism. whether it's on a tabloid social site or on the front page of the newspaper it is still a BIG SERIOUS PROBLEM. Oh and another thing, I just have a question for you, if it's such a pathetic tabloid entertainment curruption how did you happen to find this story? I wonder who likes to read about tabloid entertainment?
Why, in this country, is it okay for people to say bad and mostly untrue things about the leaders of the country, claiming freedom of speech is on their side, but as soon as it comes to something targeting his- or herself, they try and put a stop to it? - i'm not condoning racist remarks, i'm just saying, you can't have unlimited free speech without downsides. "you can't have your cake and eat it, too." Hypocryts.
I closed my account MONTHS ago. And there MAY be other more pressing concerns in the world but this website is certainly one of them.
I get a lot of google and msn searches ending up on my site because I have a blog article on how to "Hack Myspace." They are usually disappointed when they find out it's in reference to a book that teaches how to make your layout look better.
I recommend that people make their profile private to avoid non-friends access to the data they are posting. Many times this data can include information that will make it easier for a hacker to narrow down the possibilities of a password.
That is true. There are other things going on in the world today, such as, hunger, disease, war and other things. Myspace is the least of my worries. Yes, I have an account with Myspace, and I'm there to make friends. YOU have the power to delete people, delete messages and bulletins and so forth. You also have the power to delete your entire account. I didn't know Myspace had so much drama going on.
Did it ever occur to anyone that perhaps this band posted the message themselves? Think about it: Here's a band that virtually unknown, and now due to this issue, they're getting publicity. It would be a rotten way to get attention, but it's definately working.
My stepson didn't even have a myspace account. But someone opened one, pretending to be him. They posted his picture with vulgar comments and have him soliciting kids for sex. Since he didn't open the acct, he doesn't have a password or any power to change it. He went to the police, Homeland Security, and FBI. They said they wouldn't help. So, now he has this profile out there that is completely defamatory, could be seen by a future employer, and he has no way to remove the account. This is devastating him that they set him up to look like a pedophile. There should be some recourse, does anyone know of anything he could do?
ATTN VALERIE SIGLER!!!:
you and your son are morons! go to myspace.com click on help and it gives you a whole list of options to choose from *gasp!* including what to do if someone has created a FAKE ACCOUNT PRETENDING TO BE YOU!!!!!
Thanks for all of the advice! I'm too old to be up on all the ins and outs of myspace.com. My son is 34 and contacted an attorney friend of his and he suggested contacting the authorities. My son also considers himself too old to have a myspace account and was completely unfamiliar with myspace. He is a coach and one of his kids pointed it out to him.
So, a moron? No. Ignorant of the system? Yes.
Is someone mad at him? Yes, an opposing team's coach. Very juvenile, but very destructive.
Then if you make it "PRIVATE" then the open community like atmosphere will be gone... Then you will have another cheesy singles site... It's an online community that could be more secure, but who can complain when there's nearly 100 million people... The best thing is to never store really valuable info, or use the same password that you use on you regular e-mail account... You do need to sign in with a legit e-mail though because that is the only way to retrieve a password that's been changed by a hacker. Otherwise you and your page is screwed and forever changed never to be corrected. Hackers can't change the sign-in e-mail either unless they have access to your yahoo, hotmail or other e-amil account passwords.
Myspace has been going down hill ever since they sold out to the man. That's why we created www.communityx.net for indy bands and artist and the average person who doesn't need a glam shot to be apart of something cool.
Comx is hosts mp3s for indy bands and offers a wide variety of free promotion for anyone who signs up.
yesterday in a myspace chatroom somebody somehow was typing obscene messages into the chatroom using my nickname...now i know anyone can have the SAME nickname ..so looked at the user list on the left of the 'room' and there was only one with MY NAME!,i was soo upset at the filth coming out of my namesakes 'mouth' i was asking my fellow chatters if they could see it...they could!:(
i had to get out of there and fast.............sum ppl there knew me..and knew i would never utter such things,racial...vulgar and ~shiverrr~ anyway i sent a email to myspace ...altho to be honest i dont expect much!...oh btw another girl in the room said it happend to her two days ago too!.they use your name style and color of font.
Mostly myspace is suffering from little wannabe hackers such as those who put up 'fake' myspace login pages which just returns the username/password via form into their email. Most people don't think to check the URL when they're trying to access a page that 'looks' like the real thing. No offense, but mostly it's a bunch of kiddies who make this common mistake and I've had to warn half a dozen numerous times to change the pass ASAP to prevent this problem.
So many of you are forgetting the issues:
1. It's not that racist remarks are being posted in bulletins; it's actually that hackers are getting into people's accounts and defaming their character, possibly costing them professional credibility and friends. If someone sent hateful e-mail from your accounts to all your friends, how would YOU be able to easily prove to those friends that it wasn't your fault? Some people only recall the negative words and have trouble getting past that. Look at Mel Gibson right now in the news- his career is in trouble because of leaked, previously-omitted pages of his DUI arrest report in which he spouts anti-Semitic speech. It's already out there, regardless of whether he really said those words. Now... imagine you're a start-up band, gaining a fan base until someone POSING as you puts down half your new groupies. I guarantee a chunk of those groupies would believe the hate bulletin over the apology.
2. Those who say MySpace is disgusting, evil, etc. are likewise saying the Internet as a whole is evil. Chat rooms have existed for at least 15 years, whether on the full Internet or local bulletin board systems run from an individual's home, in which you don't even need an ISP. Kids have always been at risk for predators, but now irresponsible, blame-shifting parents have a popular site at which to point a finger. It's OKAY to let your older children on there.... as long as you MONITOR their actions! Keep the computer in a public room! Firewall certain sites on certain computer user accounts! Have your own VERY BASIC MySpace account to keep access to theirs, or tell your child they can't have an account unless YOU have equal access to protect them from sickos! If the kid complains, tell them that if more parents don't act that way, then MySpace WILL continue to be targeted! But my point is that predators have always had a medium for stalking their prey... MySpace is just the most popular one at this moment. If your kid were in an AOL chat room and convinced to meet a 37-year-old man in a dark alley for "candy," would you sue AOL? NO! Watch your children's activities and BE A PARENT. Really, if your 14-year-old shows up on a page with her butt hanging out of her glitter jeans and showing off her curves, it's only your own damn fault. If your kid doesn't comply with your demands, take away their computer priviledges and watch their account so they're not accessing it from another location. They can use an encyclopedia and books for their homework.
The most popular places are always attacked the easiest, whether by hackers or horrible parents in denial of their lacking skills. Just keep an eye on your MySpace, be wary if your friends post bulletins that don't sound right, and don't be retardedly clicking links that pop up. Watch your kids, too. Geez, next some of you will be blaming the mall because your kid got abducted after you left them alone in the food court.
Just be careful what sites you guve your myspace username and passwords to (i.e. pimpyourspace.com, or any other site that lets you modify your myspace profile.). I know this is true because my sister's account got hacked into and they posted a bulliten through it displaying exactly what the example above displays. Use caution.
