Myspace has lost all content uploaded to the site before 2016. All data has been lost including photos, videos and more than 50 million songs.

Myspace has responded to this incident by blaming a faulty server migration for the mass deletion. This is reported to have occurred over a year ago, which has only recently come to light from user complaints about inaccessible content. Myspace has confirmed the data has been lost permanently and there is no hope of retrieval from backups.

Despite the rivalry with other social media companies, for example, Facebook, Myspace has retained a user base, mainly with musicians building their fanbase. In 2013 Myspace’s relaunch was seen as a failure, as it cleared most of the text content from all profiles, including wall posts. However, music and images were left intact, likely for their music focused users.

Myspace initially claimed the deletion was a temporary error, reassuring users the issue would be fixed. They then stated on a banner on myspace.com: “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. We apologise for the inconvenience and suggest that you retain your backup copies. If you would like more information, please contact our data protection officer”.

The mass-deletion has drawn comparisons to other early internet communities which closed down in a similar fashion, such as Geocities, however these companies did manage to give sufficient warning to users.

Some have speculated that the deletion was intentional on the part of Myspace. “I’m deeply sceptical this was an accident,” wrote web expert Andy Baio, “Flagrant incompetence may be bad PR, but it still sounds better than, ‘We can’t be bothered with the effort and cost of migrating and hosting 50 million old MP3s”.

This incident has received a lot of attention and reminds us how precious our data is online. For help or information on running and maintaining basic or complex backup services, please contact us.