Politics Political Texts
posted by September 27 at 0:13 AM
onThis seems like one of those “First they came for the Jews…” moments.
The New York Times reports on Verizon’s decision not to carry text messages from Naral Pro-Choice America.
The dispute over the Naral messages is a skirmish in the larger battle over the question of “net neutrality” — whether carriers or Internet service providers should have a voice in the content they provide to customers.“This is right at the heart of the problem,” said Susan Crawford, a visiting professor at the University of Michigan law school, referring to the treatment of text messages. “The fact that wireless companies can choose to discriminate is very troubling.”
In turning down the program, Verizon, one of the nation’s two largest wireless carriers, told Naral that it does not accept programs from any group “that seeks to promote an agenda or distribute content that, in its discretion, may be seen as controversial or unsavory to any of our users.” Naral provided copies of its communications with Verizon to The New York Times.
Nancy Keenan, Naral’s president, said Verizon’s decision interfered with political speech and activism.
“No company should be allowed to censor the message we want to send to people who have asked us to send it to them,” Ms. Keenan said. “Regardless of people’s political views, Verizon customers should decide what action to take on their phones. Why does Verizon get to make that choice for them?”
I know. I know. No one’s forcing customers to use Verizon. Problem is. What’s your alternative? AT&T?
UPDATE:
In the 7 hours since I originally posted this, Verizon reversed its decision. Ahhh, behold the power of Slog! The NYT reports this morning:
Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless last week rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.But the company reversed course this morning, saying it had made a mistake.
“The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident,” Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman, said in a statement.
“It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy,” Mr. Nelson said. “That policy, developed before text messaging protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from unwanted messages, was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children.”
Comments
Verizon decides to play Big Brother and decide what kind of communication their customers want... Yeah, that's certainly good corporate imaging.
Anybody want to speculate how fast they're going to change their minds? I would guess a day's news cycle should do it.
what the fuck
Well, I use Virgin Mobile, so I don't have to worry about censorship or abortions.
no I'm kidding it's really a fucking travesty (also I have had sex, with other people)
That's the NEW AT&T.
Wow, that is really messed up. Too bad they fixed it so fast. I expect even true conservatives would find this really messed up and scary.
Hey, at least AT&T is a union shop.
And clearly Verizon, for whatever reason, has seen the light of day. Yes, it's one thing to block unsolicited messages, but quite another to block messages customers have already agreed to receive.
This makes no sense to me. The full article says that only people who "sign up" for the messages receive them. That means if you find the messages offensive then it's your own goddamn fault for signing up to receive them.
It also means that NARAL isn't sending indiscriminate spam texts, which is what I thought when I first read this article.
You don't have to use Verizon or AT&T. You should all think about Helio. They're progressive in their attitudes and pricing and services. And the phones have built-in MySpace. No, really, they're great.
"First they came for the Jews". Thanks for that reminder Josh. At a time in racist Seattle where we can't even get a menorah in the airport, we must all be vigilant. Never can we forget the Holocaust, and the goyim must see reminders of it ever day.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/63251/
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