Verizon - AOL political censorship

Wuli | 10/27/2022 | Wuli

[Wuli]

I use a third party Email program (Thunderbird) to get my Email (via a POP setup) from Verizon (now hosted by AOL).

I noticed some months ago that spam filters it was using were not always reliable.

I began going on line to AOL mail to see what had been placed in the "Trash" folder (Emails I got via Thunderbird) and what it had in a "SPAM" folder. I found Emails assigned as Spam were not and some Emails they sent ot me should have been sent to the Spam folder instead. I made corrections on their Email web page.

NOW I am finding the Spam folder on AOL is getting many, naby Emails sent to me by Republican sources, including nearly every Email from the NRSC (not that I give to them, I don't).

Verizon/AOL is conducting pre-mid terms political censorship.

[packagingguy]

Google was doing this; this was widely reported.

It’s not a mistake.

[Taxman]

I use Thunderbird by way of Earthlink.net.

Don’t seem to have that problem.

Just FYI.

[Leep]

My solution opt out of all but a few things.
I’ve reduced my phone to less
$10 a month.
The life a off-grid hermit is looking better all the time.

[Wuli]

“I use Thunderbird by way of Earthlink.net....”Don’t seem to have that problem.....”Just FYI.”

Yes. I understand. The problem is with the company running the web-based Email servers hosting the Email BEFORE it is brought down to my PC in Thunderbird. It is a Verizon/AOL issue entirely. I have been thinking of going to paid-subscription Email service from Switzerland. They do encryption on both ends amd claim their servers are the mpst secure in the world.

[Seaplaner]

my outlookdotcom email keeps putting the Babylon Bee emails in my trash, against my continual attempts to make it high priority email.

Check your trash or junk folders often.

[SuperLuminal]

Hmmm...
I received, this morning, 17 emails from Trump’s “Save America”...

About average per day since April 2020 when my automatic & puny monthly contribution kicked in...

I just dump them... Verizon/AOL not interfering at all...

[dila813]

Why would you use AOL or any email provider by either a mobile or fixed ISP, why don’t you give them your fingerprints as well?

[krizzy]

I have exactly the same problem with the same set up. It has been going on since AOL became the provider, and there is no way to turn off the spam folder. As I get no emails from the rats, I do not know if they would go to spam or not.

[Taxman]

I have ALWAYS hated AOL!

I ALWAYS advise people who have AOL to quit!

After you switch providers, be sure to scrub your registry of ALL AOL bits and pieces!

[minnesota_bound]

I had my website and email hosted with Lunarpages for many years going back to 2007. They were bought out by a Canadian company called Hostpapa a few years back just prior to the stolen election. Never had an issue with LunarPages.

The new host was not as good. My email was being blocked and when I contacted them they admitted to doing so due to key words.

The key words in my case was an email to my relative about Joe Biden.
I called him and his son pedophiles and that Joe Biden was a criminal.

The email was bounced back. I tried sending different ways. Only when I removed Biden and pedophiles did the email get thru.
I was getting lots of spam as well and in their cPanel email settings I tried blocking spam and allowing only certain email accounts thru. Still lots of spam.

I found another provider called BlueHost which is excellent.
They helped me setup my site and email within an hour.
https://www.bluehost.com
I rarely get any spam. Months can go by and they do not block emails!

[daniel1212]

Commercial communication companies like Google, Verizon and Comcast actually state in their "terms of use" type policies that certain forms of speech are prohibited. For example, Verizon's Acceptable Use Policy states in part,

1. General Policy: Verizon reserves the sole discretion to deny or restrict your Service, or immediately to suspend or terminate your Service, if the use of your Service by you or anyone using it, in our sole discretion, ...is objectionable...or violates the terms of this Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”). Is so broad and subjectively defined that it can cover all sorts of otherwise protected speech. It used to say, "Verizon reserves the right to deny Service to you, or immediately to terminate your Service for material breach, if your use... promotes or incites bigotry, hatred or racism; (c) might be legally actionable for any reason, (d) is objectionable for any reason...

And Comporium Communications, like the rest, has a SERVICE AGREEMENT in which it states, Objectionable content. Using our services to post, transmit or disseminate any content that is, in our opinion, abusive, libelous, slanderous, defamatory, incites hatred or is otherwise offensive or objectionable.

Likewise, Comcast Cloud Solutions Terms of Service (for businesses) states, in part,

BY USING THE CLOUD SOLUTIONS MARKETPLACE YOU AGREE NOT TO post, upload, or distribute any User Submission (as defined in Section 8 below) or other content that is defamatory....inaccurate... or that a reasonable person could deem to be objectionable, offensive,...threatening, embarrassing, distressing, vulgar, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or otherwise inappropriate.

And as usual with these terms of service consents, this contains some ambiguous language( that would allow broad censorship (cf. content that is offensive or objectionable) which can be interpreted to place FR in violation, and you/us as users, now or in the future.

And note Cloudflare's policy which is, as stated vby CEO Matthew Prince, "One of the greatest strengths of the United States is a belief that speech, particularly political speech, is sacred. A website, of course, is nothing but speech ... A website is speech. It is not a bomb. There is no imminent danger it creates and no provider has an affirmative obligation to monitor and make determinations about the theoretically harmful nature of speech a site may contain."

For all customers Cloudflare offers an "I'm Under Attack Mode" setting. Cloudflare claims this can mitigate advanced Layer 7 attacks by presenting a JavaScript computational challenge which must be completed by a user's browser before the user can access a website - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudflare

But who dropped the American neo-Nazi website "The Daily Stormer" as a customer. Which I would do also, but as said, if a host can deny such based on its content being objectionable, it can deny conservative content on the same basis (unless perhaps the one denied wanted to promote the homosexual agenda or reverse racism.). This issue led to this opinion piece in the NYT no less, The Terrifying Power of Internet Censors :

Generally speaking, there are two kinds of corporate players on the internet: companies that build infrastructure through which content flows, and companies that seek to curate content and create a community.

Internet service providers like Verizon and Comcast, domain name servers, web hosts and security services providers like Cloudflare are all the former — or the “pipe.” They typically don’t look at the content their clients and customers are putting up, they just give them the means to do it and let it flow.

Social media platforms like Facebook are the latter. They encourage their users to create, share and engage with content — so they look at content all the time and decide whether they want to allow hateful material like that of neo-Nazis to stay up.

One of the additional difficulties with Cloudflare is that it is not so much a piece of pipe as it is a service. Specifically, it is a paid-for-protection service. Having to hire Cloudflare to protect your website is like having to hire security to protect you from attackers when you speak in the public square.

Matthew Prince, Cloudflare’s chief executive, acknowledged how much power his company has, and what’s at stake. “The internet is a really important resource for everyone,” he said in an interview with TechCrunch, “but there’s a very limited set of companies that control it and there’s such little accountability to us that it really is quite a dangerous thing.” - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/13/opinion/cloudflare-daily-stormer-charlottesville.html

[Wuli]

“I have exactly the same problem with the same set up. It has been going on since AOL became the provider”

Yes. Amd if you are like me, for whom I am a Verizon customer and only on AOL because that is where Verizon moved our Verizon Email, we are not “Paid” AOL customers so we get ZERO real technical support vis-a-vis Email.