Censorship or Overzealous Spam Filtering? A Response to PBS Mind.

posted by Damozel | Speaking of filters, in a posting below, our talented and learned contributor PBS Mind raises the question whether certain email providers are censoring emailed newsletters from certain progressive political organizations.  Truthout readers here say that their attempts to de-spam their missing newsletters to get them into their inbox are mysteriously failing to work no matter what they do.  With all due respect to PBS Mind, I just can't buy it.  For one thing, my email providers have "censored" other newsletters of mine with no political content whatsoever. 

I worry a lot about censorship and access to information, so I've been mulling this over since reading PBS Mind's post last night and I still can't decide which way I lean.  I guess I find it hard---no, impossible--- to believe that these providers would have anything to gain, or even think they have anything to gain, by selectively filtering progressive newsletters----and I'd also need to know the stats on conservative ones and on newsletters generally.  (Either way the providers to which PBS Mind refers clearly need to do something about their filtering processes and that right speedily.)  I don't think there is any really compelling evidence that they were censoring the info for political reasons.  If I'm wrong then put it down to my naivete.

If it IS censorship, it would be pretty ineffectual, given that it's allegedly directed at one or two progressive newsletters and anyone who doesn't receive the newsletter can always just go directly to the site instead.  It wouldn't work, in other words. I think the problems were probably due to some technical or technology issue.

Not that it really matters in one sense.  After all, if people aren't getting their newsletters and they complain, and they STILL don't get their newsletters, they have the right to change their email providers and even, I imagine, to organize a boycott.  Whether you think PBS Mind and others like her are correct in attributing the missing emails to censorship or whether you think they're wrong, you have to ask yourself what ought to happen in the case where they happened to be right.  After all, such a case might well occur.  If customers want their email, an email provider ought to be able to give them their damn emails.  Otherwise, their customers will find someone who can.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in terms of---HINT, HINT!---better customer service.

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Comments

[jennifer hagstrom]

I'm with you right up until Hotmail ADMITTED THEY WERE DOING IT. There your argument fails. I would also refer you to the post I'll be entering later today, about another company doing the exact same thing -- and admitting it!