October 1, 2007
AOL, Microsoft,
Yahoo! and the Practice of Corporate Censorship
Sometimes it’s tough
to model freedom of speech to the world. The U.S. government rightly
blasts Myanmar’s military junta for, among other actions against
protesters, cutting Internet access.
At the same time,
U.S. businesses are ripping pages right out of the Bush administration’s
top-secret playbook. They are censoring or refusing certain e-mail
communications, even though the would-be recipients of the messages have
asked for them.
Verizon initially
declined to grant (paid) access to its huge mobile phone network to
NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion-rights advocacy organization, for
a text-message program. After intense nationwide media scrutiny, the
phone company flip-flopped, saying it made an error and will now carry
the organization’s text messages.
How magnanimous of
Verizon – agreeing to accept another revenue stream. Shareholders should
be pleased.
Verizon’s
presumption, however, is by no means the only instance of private
censorship. Opt-in subscribers to the newsletter of liberal news
aggregator Truthout (www.truthout.org) have been having troubles lately
with e-mail providers AOL, Microsoft Corp. (Hotmail, MSN and WebTV) and
Yahoo.
(Full disclosure: I
am a Truthout supporter, sending in a small monthly donation to the site
that depends entirely on voluntary financing. I visit Truthout every
day, which is how I know about this issue.)
As of his latest
posting on September 20, Truthout Executive Director Marc Ash writes
that AOL appears to have reversed course and is now forwarding Truthout
newsletters. Yahoo also is forwarding Truthout e-mails – to its
customers’ junk mail folders, doing so even after customers attempted to
mark Truthout e-mails as acceptable in their Yahoo mail control pages.
I tried phoning
executives at these companies for comment, only to be informed that
unless I could tell the receptionist the names of the executives’
assistants, my call would not be forwarded to their offices.
I then tried
contacting two PR representatives for Yahoo, along with the Microsoft
rapid response PR team. Only the Microsoft spokesman provided any
response, via e-mail (how ironic). “. . . We have followed up directly
with Truthout to try to help address any issues and provided specific
guidance on our Hotmail practices. Microsoft treats all mail providers
in the same manner by providing the information necessary to ensure
delivery of legitimate mail to its customers.”
Ash reports,
however, that Hotmail, MSN and WebTV still decline to forward any
Truthout communications. Are Hotmail, MSN and WebTV equally as vigilant
in denying passage to pornographic images or foul language in e-mails?
What gives any
e-mail service provider the right to block any legitimate e-mail? This
does not include child pornography, which is illegal. What about the
gazillion pieces of spam (unsolicited and usually unwanted e-mails)
transmitted by AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN and WebTV? If these services do
so well at blocking Truthout’s e-mails, surely they can exert themselves
to quash all that annoying spam as well.
Without direct
comment from any of these companies, I can only surmise that Truthout’s
liberal political persuasion may have something to do with transmission
problems for its e-mails.
While the First
Amendment prohibits the kind of government censorship that Myanmar is
exhibiting, it does not cover private U.S. businesses. As e-mail and the
World Wide Web take on a greater and greater role as primary
communications methods, perhaps it’s time for a law, or even a
constitutional amendment, to make sure that private businesses do not
get to play parent and decide what we, adult customers, can and cannot
receive in our inboxes.
Just to be sure they
get the message, customers of AOL, Hotmail, MSN, WebTV, and Yahoo might
want to replace their providers with different companies to hit these
businesses where they live – in the pocketbook.
After all, if
businesses can get away with censoring liberals, what’s to stop them
from censoring conservative or religious messages they don’t like? This
isn’t a partisan issue. This is an issue of freedom itself. The likes
and dislikes of private enterprise cannot trump customers’ freedom of
speech and expression, and their right to freely exchange even
controversial opinions and comments.
© 2007
North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
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