Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Verizon Wireless Decides Not to Allow Naral Text Messaging [Nevermind]

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I am writing this while I am on hold with a very nice customer service person at Verizon Wireless. I am trying register my complaint about the reported Verizon Wireless decision not to allow Naral to text message people who want to receive their message. I was just transferred to another very nice customer service person who is going to make a note of my complaint and send it on to someone. 

Please call Verizon Wireless and tell them this is a stupid decision. 

To contact Customer Service,

Dial *611 from your wireless phone

(800) 922-0204

Monday-Sunday 6am-11pm

TTY – (877) 899-8891

Monday-Friday 9am-6pm(EST)
 

UPDATE:  According to the NYT, Verizon Wireless reversed its decision.

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Comments

  1. How this would work. 

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    It sounds like the only people who would sign up are the already-converted.  Why would they spend dough to receive messages from NARAL?

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    If they are targetting people who aren’t already converted, then the messages are spam, and ought to be barred along with other spam.

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    Either way, the utility of the program seems questionable.

    • if CMD doesn’t like your business plan, it just shouldn’t be? đŸ˜‰

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      lots of people use their phones ‘n ‘berries to read email & text messages.  if they’re really into NARAL, who are you to say they shouldn’t spend $$ to get updates this way?  btw, and are you sure they have to spend money?  i honestly don’t know – i don’t use text messaging.  i do know thought that if i get a call on my verizon wireless from another v.w. user, it is free for both of us.

      • I was just wondering what the strategy was. I don’t care if people want to pay money for NARAL messages.  Have at it.  It is weird that Verizon doesn’t want to sell them; their money is presumably green.  Also, I imagine Verizon doesn’t give a crap if people talk about abortion over their cell phones, so what is the difference?

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        I was really asking why NARAL wants to spend time doing this.  It sounds like Moveon emails that cost the recipient a penny apiece.  It was my impression that texting–different from mobile e-mail, as on a Crackberry– is largely the domain of adolescents.

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        Nevertheless, if they want to, who am I, or Verizon, to stop them.  There is no accounting for taste.

        • “Verizon takes money from customers and, in exchange, renders services”.

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          Wow. Hold the presses.

    • As the NYT article states,

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      Texting has proven 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 the November 2006 were 4.2 percentage points 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.

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      I do not have text messaging with my service, but a lot of people do, and being able to rally your supporters to make phone calls on important issues as they arise is a really big deal for advocacy groups.  Apparently, Verizon Wireless has decided not to allow it for certain groups with certain messages:

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        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…
      A spokesman for Verizon said the decision turned on the subject matter of the messages and not on Naral’s position on abortion. “Our internal policy is in fact neutral on the position,” said the spokesman, Jeffrey Nelson. “It is the topic itself” – abortion – “that has been on our list.”

      A recent message from Naral was, “End Bush’s global gag rule against birth control for world’s poorest women! Call Congress. (202) 224-3121. Thnx! Naral Text4Choice.”  Hardly an unsavory message.

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      This is about a company deciding not to allow its customers to receive messages from a group the customer decides he or she wants to communicate with because the company does not like the message.  (Naral, and other groups who use text messaging, only send the messages out to people who request them.) 

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  2. …I’m not sure what the difference is between text messaging and emails sent over an email mailing list, but Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo.com this morning (or maybe yesterday) suggests that this prohibition is not limited to Verizon’s wireless service.

  3. here’s some interesting info from NARAL.  no wonder Verizon caved – the response was astounding. emphasis added.

    Just a few hours ago the CEO of Verizon Wireless faxed me a letter confirming what you may have already heard: his corporation has reversed its “dusty internal policy” that blocked its customers from receiving text-messages they requested from us!

    This was a massive victory. Our members, activists, bloggers, Capitol Hill, and other concerned citizens all joined in pressuring Verizon to reverse this decision. In just two hours you sent more than 20,000 messages to Verizon officials! This was a tremendous testament to our combined strength. Thank you!

    It’s ironic that when we sent a text message last week, the subject was Bush’s global gag rule. While our domestic “gag rule” may now be cleared up with the Verizon corporation, there are still women around the world who don’t receive the information they request because the Bush administration censors international family-planning groups’ free speech.

    We didn’t let Verizon get away with its outrageous policy – don’t let Bush get away with his! Please urge your friends to take action today.

    • Of course I’m glad Verizon caved, but I think an overriding concern for them was not to rock the boat as they consolidate their empire.

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      As the Times story explains, Verizon likely has the right to discriminate in what it carries. But the prize (for them) is not so much political censorship–though that may follow–as the ability to charge different fees for accessing different content providers in the future. As in, MS Search is free, but there’s a charge for Google and Yahoo.

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      They couldn’t execute that business plan if they were regulated as a common carrier.

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      The debate over net neutrality is still very much in progress, and Verizon would be crazy to start censoring or discriminating. Yet.

    • i had never considered that a forced-birther would ever dream of having an abortion herself.  it is one thing to have a strong opinion about what other people should do with their bodies.  it is another to not toe the very same line you draw for others.  somehow i guess i’ve been naive to think that forced-birthers are honest about their convictions.  i guess they are no more so, and perhaps less so, than anyone else.  wow.

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