Yahoo Blocked Emails About Wall Street Protests 311
itwbennett writes "People trying to email information about the Wall Street protests on Monday using Yahoo mail, found themselves on the receiving end of messages from Yahoo claiming 'suspicious activity'. ThinkProgress.org has a YouTube video of users trying to send emails that mention the 'OccupyWallSt.org' web site, which seemed to be the magic phrase to get your email blocked. Via Twitter, Yahoo announced the blockage was now fixed, but 'there may be residual delays.'"
Re:Yahoo mail? (Score:5, Interesting)
It hit a spam trap. No conspiracy, no shadowy people preventing you from yahooing. Not big afroed white dude following you around.
Re:If you send spam, that's what happens (Score:5, Interesting)
I was going to ask how this url got blacklisted by the spam filter, but it it was unsolicited and mass mailed, then by definition it WAS spam, and the black listing happened automagically when users flagged it as such.
This scenario makes me wonder if a crowdsourced disruption campaign could disrupt email from major corporations intended for end user inboxes ("special offers" ahem...) simply by having the participants mass email each other a bulk list of urls relating to the target, then have them all report the chain letter as spam.
That would get a large number of corporate urls blacklisted for suspicious activity. (Assuming there aren't any sweetheart deals in place to specifically whitelist such web addresses, of course.)
In related news... (Score:5, Interesting)
Trend Micro OfficeScan Event
URL Blocked
The URL that you are attempting to access is a potential security risk. Trend Micro OfficeScan has blocked this URL in keeping with network security policy.
URL: http://occupywallst.org/ [occupywallst.org]
Risk Level: Dangerous
Details: Verified fraud page or threat source
Yay
Re:So that's what all the fuss is about (Score:5, Interesting)
The media did the same thing with the demonstrations in Wisconsin against the Anti-Union law that was hastily passed. Thousands of demonstrators but little coverage, but how strange, any little Tea Party gathering of 20-30 people got national coverage. I guess the rarity of that type of demonstration makes it News (or for the racist and defamatory signs)., whereas large demonstrations against corporate greed are more commonplace and not worthy of note. Or the liberal media really is now the corporate media.
Re:So that's what all the fuss is about (Score:4, Interesting)
The example I typically bring up in these kinds of discussions: In 2003, in anticipation of the start of the Iraq War, peaceniks worldwide organized protests that involved (depending on which source you believe) 5-10 million people, meaning that something like 1 out of every 1000 people in the world were protesting that day. These protests are nearly forgotten. Similarly unreported were the facts that public polls on the Iraq War favor immediate withdrawal by a 20% margin for 5 years, and more recently have developed a similar pattern on the Afghanistan War.
Noam Chomsky isn't right about everything, but on the idea that corporate-owned media leads to pro-corporate biases he's right on the money. Particularly when the most "liberal" of the major news outlets is owned by General Electric, which profits handsomely from defense contracts.