Verizon Rejects Naral Messages, then Reverses Decision After Exposure

Verizon is a part of the gang that wants us to trust them on "net neutrality".

So when the NY Times published an article "Verizon Rejects Abortion Rights Group’s Messages" yesterday which started out ominously:

Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.

...

Texting has proved to be an extraordinarily effective political tool. According to a study released this month by researchers at Princeton and the University of Michigan, young people who received text messages reminding them to vote in November 2006 were more likely to go to the polls. The cost per vote generated, the study said, was much smaller than other sorts of get-out-the-vote efforts.

Around the world, the phenomenon is even bigger.

“Even as dramatic as the adoption of text messaging for political communication has been in the United States, we’ve been quite slow compared to the rest of the world,” said James E. Katz, the director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “It’s important in political campaigns and political protests, and it has affected the outcomes of elections.”

Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia, said it was possible to find analogies to Verizon’s decision abroad. “Another entity that controls mass text messages is the Chinese government,” Professor Wu said.

Apparently the proverbial sh*t hit the proverbial fan.

And today we read at the Times "Verizon Reverses Itself on Abortion Rights Messages ": 

“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.

...

Mr. Nelson noted that text messaging is “harnessed by organizations and individuals communicating their diverse opinions about issues and topics” and said Verizon has “great respect for this free flow of ideas.”

And the Times noted in both reports that the other major mobile providers had accepted Naral's requests.

Even if we never get a law out of it, we should encourage our Congressionals to keep  that 'Net Neutrality Act" in front of the Congress. 

Verizon mentioned that these days spam filters and other controls would keep inappropriate messages away from children and others and the Times twice showed that the NARAL messages had to be requested.

It wasn't like NARAL was going to be sending messages to children.

Then again there are right wing bloggers and commenters that proclaim a Democratic president would "mandate prayer rugs and Islamic prayer books in every home".    So who knows what kind of ridiculous talking points they will make out of this. 

But the question is whether this new Verizon policy change applies to those groups who don't have NARAL's clout.  What if the New York Times isn't going to make a report on your problems setting up a text message program with a major mobile carrier?

It's the little people that net neutrality is all about. 

tags: verizon  net neutrality  congress  republicans  democrats  

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