Celebrities can be a boon to social networking sites, but they can also be a liability if they become unhappy with a site. Ning, the service that lets you create your own social network, is growing quick and attracting some big names. Author Seth Godin used the platform to start a private forum for marketing experts. Rapper 50 Cent has attracted such a following on his network, Thisis50.com, that other hip hop artists have started advertising on the site to find new fans. On Wednesday, Wyclef Jean announced to his Twitter followers that he was abandoning Clef Zone, the Ning network that he only recently created. His specific objection to Ning is unclear (we have a call out to Wyclef, who for some reason posted his phone number on Twitter the same day), but he says on Twitter that “i want my own server” and “I wanna be in full control of my vision.” The performer also hints that he’s concerned about the security of internal messaging on the site, saying (sic) “I DONT TRUST A SOCIAL NETWORK WERE THEY HAVE YOUR EMAILS.” Guess who responded? Ning CEO Gina Bianchini, who frequently gives her users personal attention — particularly the A-listers. Wyclef’s complaint and Gina’s response are below. I’ll update this post if I hear back from either party. Update (2:15 PM Eastern): Looks like there’s no hard feelings between Wyclef and Ning… And Ning spokeswoman Morgan Seal provides this statement: We love when people experiment with Ning. Based on the tweets you reference, it looks like Wyclef and his team decided they wanted to develop a social networking application on their own servers with their own developers. While Ning provides an easy way to create and customize your own social network and gives Network Creators full access to member data and control of their content, we fully respect and understand that Ning may not be right for everyone.

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