Mega Fail: How The Internet Rumor Mill Tied Swizz Beatz to MegaUpload
Photo Courtesy of Bet.com
The Internet is one large megaphone for news. Every single user can add their voice to the bellowing scream of information, whether accurate or completely false. Not unlike a rumor mill, the Internet creates pathways for news to spread quickly without real cause for noting sources. A perfect example of our modern technology's ability to meme itself into credited news outlets is the misinformed case of music producer Swizz Beatz holding the title of CEO of the now defunct file-sharing company, MegaUpload.
MegaUpload was a insanely large file-sharing portal on the Internet. With a paid membership model, MegaUpload allowed its users to store files to share privately or publicly with the rest of the site. Though some of these files were owned by the users themselves, a large number of the files were pirated versions of media, including music files. Since the file-sharing service had a public search option, the base model of MegaUpload stemmed into areas of illegal piracy of copyrighted items. Due to its immense size and user membership, MegaUpload popped onto the radar of the US government almost five years ago. The government built a strong case against this site in hopes of bringing it down coincidentally at the same time as Internet piracy legislation was on the voting blocks in US Congress.
At this point, one may wonder where Swizz Beatz plays into this legal investigation on a file-sharing website. Before the initial crackdown of MegaUpload by the government, a music video appeared on Youtube showcasing a variety of music artists and celebrities stating in terrible auto-tuned lyrics their particular investment in MegaUpload as a choice file-sharing site. The irony of this video is obvious: music artists were promoting a site that encourages piracy of copyrighted music. The premise was mind boggling. The artists' record labels tried to take down the video unsuccessfully. The response from the record labels spawned retaliation attacks from hacker groups against the record labels’ sites. It was a small Internet turf war on creative freedom.
Noted items of this music video: a Swizz Beatz promotion and an appearance by his wife, Alicia Keys. Aside from that, he had no involvement with this bizarre visual display of appreciation towards the website.
What extended past this cameo was a rapid spread of misinformation. Quickly the world believed that Swizz Beatz held the title of CEO of MegaUpload. The only noted source of this information was the MegaUpload "About" page and its subsequent user-generated Wikipedia page. Neither information source held much merit as both were updated without notice mere days before the US government delivered their indictment to the actual team of MegaUpload -- which included numerous arrests; thus, shutting down the site for good.
In reality, when the US government delivered their major hit to this site, Swizz Beatz was not part of any of the arrests or even written up in the official indictment. If he was actually CEO of the company, his name would be near to the top and he would be facing heavy charges with the rest of the team.
Sadly, the Internet bit into the rumor of Swizz Beatz being the CEO of a company investigated by the US government and amplified it out of proportion. Major and minor news outlets alike were reporting on the same tired story that linked to no real source. It seemed that each article was citing another article for accuracy which eventually spiraled out of control. Many of the news outlets ran follow-up stories contradicting their original claims about the music producer which perpetuated the general mistrust in Internet news sourcing. Not a single news outlet noted that none of the official documents filed by the US government included Swizz Beatz.
Even MegaUpload's Wikipedia page was changed to include the rumor mill that spun around the Swizz Beatz CEO storyline. With the indictment set and the arrests made, the US government officially shut down the MegaUpload site which created even more mystery to Swizz Beatz's true involvement with the company. Eventually his lawyer made an official statement that with all the titles that Swizz Beatz held in his career, the title of MegaUpload's CEO was not one of them.
So in question, where did this rumor start?
Whether it was MegaUpload themselves in a grand attempt of saving the site or Swizz Beatz creating a media buzz for his own personal gain, no one will ever know. The Internet does not allow for such a seed to be found. The only thing visible is the weeds that grow out of control when viral information spreads on the Internet.
All that can be said is bad press is still good press because it gets people talking.
