In
the wake of the Virginia Tech tragedy, visitors to the popular networking website
MySpace are growing increasingly upset at the placement of offensive ‘Shoot
The Rapper’ advertisements. Tempers
flared when the interactive advertisements were seen increasingly on the MySpace
pages of Virginia Tech victims, as well as hundreds of other MySpace pages. The
advertisement features a rapper who very much resembles rapper 50 Cent and a photographer
whose camera you have to move to "shoot the rapper." If
you succeed, “You will win $5000 or 5 ringtones guaranteed”. Many
people are urging websites like MySpace to become more responsible with their
advertising. "The
time has come for a company with the global reach and influence of Fox Interactive
Media to set some real standards in advertising, and send advertisers with such
a delightful message as ‘Shoot the Rapper’ into the trash heap," Peter Zollman
told Media Post. Zollman
is the principal of consultancy at Classified Intelligence on Poynter.org. "Imagine
the outcry if Fox Television ran a 60-second spot that said, ‘Shoot the American
Idol star — on our Web site — and win $5,000.’ This is no different," Zollman
said.Representatives
from MySpace were quick to explain their side on the situation. "That’s
a random network ad that runs throughout out site, and it’s not connected contextually
because we don’t place banner ads contextually on MySpace,” said Shawn Gold,
a representative from MySpace. “It’s inappropriate if the ads are running
on those profiles, and we can eliminate them from our network if that’s the case."
The
advertisements, which are supposedly from The Advertisers Reward Network, are
dated back to early this year. The
ads have still been spotted on Myspace.com as of today (Apr. 23).
