Yahoo censored emails containing the words "occupy wall street" for a while on Tuesday, September 20, 2011. Yahoo confirmed that they had blocked the emails but called it "an unintentional error."
Editor: Here is a mid-day update on the protests going on currently around Wall Street in New York City. “Occupy Wall Street” actions and a takeover of a local park continue. Tensions between demonstrators and police are mounting, one protester is in critical condition, and it appears that YAHOO was – for a while at least, censoring emails on their accounts that had the words “occupy wall street”. The “problem” appears to be over.
Tensions Rise as “Occupy Wall Street” Moves Into Fourth Day
By HuffPost / September 20, 2011 – [12:40 PM PDT]
The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest entered its fourth day on Tuesday, as anti-corporate protesters continued to occupy parts of lower Manhattan. While the organizers had hoped 20,000 would show up and dance, do yoga and raise awareness of the opposition to current economic policies, the turnout has been smaller — but equally fervent. Many protesters are still there four days in (and they even got a celebrity appearance from Roseanna Barr, who urged the government adopt a “new capitalism.”)
The Times reported Monday that at least five people were arrested, including some who were arrested on an obscure law banning public assembly while wearing a mask. Many of the arrests indeed have been over minute, often semantic, disagreements.
From the website OccupyWallStreet.org, which has been monitoring the protest:
The first arrest was a protester who objected to the police removing a tarp that was protecting our media equipment from the rain. The police said that the tarp constituted a tent, in spite of it not being a habitat in any way. Police continued pressuring protesters with extralegal tactics, saying that a protester on a bullhorn was breaking a law. The protester refused to cease exercising his first amendment rights and was also arrested. Then the police began to indiscriminately attempt to arrest protesters, many of them unsheathed their batons, in spite of the fact that the protest remained peaceful.
The Occupy Wall Street Twitter feed says that one of the protesters is in critical condition.
While the protest’s organizers had stressed that they wanted this to be a peaceful occupation, tensions have flared between the occupation and the cops assigned to keep order downtown. The group Anonymous claimed that cops have increased their presence and stolen recording equipment from some of the protesters.
For the original embedded links and the attached video, go here.
Yahoo Appears To Be Censoring Email Messages About Wall Street Protests (Updated)
By Lee Fang / ThinkProgress / September 20, 2011 a
Yahoo blocks users from sending e-mails about the OccupyWallSt.org website with a message claiming “suspicious activity”
Thinking about e-mailing your friends and neighbors about the protests against Wall Street happening right now? If you have a Yahoo e-mail account, think again. ThinkProgress has reviewed claims that Yahoo is censoring e-mails relating to the protest and found that after several attempts on multiple accounts, we too were prevented from sending messages about the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations.
Over the weekend, thousands gathered for a “Tahrir Square”-style protest of Wall Street’s domination of American politics. The protesters, organized online and by organizations like Adbusters, have called their effort “Occupy Wall Street” and have set up the website: www.OccupyWallSt.org. However, several YouTube users posted videos of themselves trying to email a message inviting their friends to visit the Occupy Wall St campaign website, only to be blocked repeatedly by Yahoo. View a video of ThinkProgress making the attempt with the same blocked message experienced by others (click full screen for a better view of the text):
ThinkProgress tried other protest websites, like AmericansforProsperity.org and TeaPartyPatriots.org, and both messages were sent smoothly. However, emails relating to the OccupyWallSt.org protest were blocked with the following message (emphasis added):
Your message was not sent
Suspicious activity has been detected on your account. To protect your account and our users, your message has not been sent.
If this error continues, please contact Yahoo! Customer Care for further help.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
ThinkProgress has sent a request for more information to Yahoo, and will post any reply once we have received it with Yahoo’s explanation for its apparent censorship.
It’s not the first time Yahoo has been accused of political censorship. Yahoo officially partners with the repressive Chinese regime to provide the government with access to emails related to groups viewed as dissidents. An explosive investigation by Der Spiegel found that Yahoo provided Chinese authorities with access to emails from journalists, and the snooping resulted in the same journalists being sent to prison camps.
The Occupy Wall Street protests have continued, but if you own a Yahoo e-mail account, you might not know about it.
Update
We’re continuing to monitor Yahoo’s mail service and have now been able to send messages containing the phrase “Occupy Wall Street” and its website on some Yahoo accounts. On other accounts, however, Yahoo is still blocking the messages.
Update
Yahoo’s customer care Twitter account acknowledges blocking the emails, but says it was an unintentional error:
“We apologize 4 blocking ‘occupywallst.org’ It was not intentional & caught by our spam filters. It is resolved, but may be a residual delay.”
Yahoo’s main Twitter account adds:
“Thanks to @YahooMail users & @ThinkProgress for catching problem w/ #Occupywallst.org mail. Prob is fixed, but there may be residual delays.”
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Look up to see the heel of the boot.