Myspace glitch deletes masses of data

Pioneering social networking site Myspace has admitted to users that music and other media files uploaded prior to 2016 have been permanently lost, after users first noticed their absence a year ago.

Founded in 2003 and known for having co-founder Tom Anderson, also known as 'Myspace Tom', be members' default first friend, Myspace was one of the largest social media destinations in the world until Facebook eclipsed it in 2008. Owned, for a period, by Justin Timberlake, and these days owned by Time Inc. parent Meredith Corporation, Myspace refocused from core social networking to a way for bands to share their music with fans - a refocusing that has allowed it to stay at least partially relevant, with an Alexa ranking of 4,860, as Facebook continued to dominate the general social media market.

Last year, however, those still using Myspace began to notice a problem: Song links, as well as those to other media including photos and videos, were beginning to error out. Complaints were raised, and Myspace began investigating - and has now concluded that, unfortunately, those files are gone for good.

In a brief message to users, Myspace admitted that the loss of the data is the result of a serious mistake during a switch to new server hardware: 'As a result of a server migration project, any photos, videos, and audio files you uploaded more than three years ago may no longer be available on or from Myspace,' the message admits. 'We apologise for the inconvenience.'

No other explanation for the loss is given, nor for why the service does not have backups from which the data can be restored. 'In 2014, Myspace was claiming to host over 53 million songs on 14.2 million artist-profile pages,' writes security expert Graham Cluley in a blog post on the matter. 'This is an appalling cultural loss. Remember - you cannot trust the likes of Myspace to look after your data forever. Use internet services to archive your content if you wish, but you’d be wise to have your own backup of anything valuable too.'