On Sept. 17, protesters formed along Wall Street in New York in order to call attention to the necessity for financial restructuring and reform of the stock market and financial system.  While the protesters gathered peacefully to take a stand, the New York Police Department formed barricades to prevent protesters from blocking the streets. 

Later, the real uproar from protesters surfaced when emails regarding the protests were apparently being blocked by Yahoo Inc. email users. Any outgoing Yahoo email contianing the Web address ‘occupywallst.org’ was blocked. According to thinkprogress.org and various YouTube videos, any outgoing Yahoo email containing a link to occupywallst.org on Sept. 20 was rejected by Yahoo with the following message:

“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.”

 Yahoo took to Twitter within hours of the news and clarified, “We apologize 4 blocking ‘occupywallst.org’ It was not intentional & caught by our spam filters. It is resolved, but may be a residual delay.” Unfortunately, these actions were not enough to cease the cry of protesters who later accused Yahoo of unlawlful censorship.

I fail to see this claim as anything more than a delusional perspective of fearful protesters. Yahoo is far from a small, private company and has an abundance of transparency as it is publicly traded. If such censorship action was to be considered, I’m more than sure the realization of immorality would present itself to said Yahoo employees. Not only would such action be immensely immoral and unjust, but it would seem to violate our right to free speech. 

While I somewhat understand the public’s fear of corporate media control, I do not find it applicable to the people of the United States. There have been a number of protests and uprisings in countries around the world this year. During such uprisings, most revolting countries’ media outlets were heavily censored and shut down. In a time of volatile economies and governments, I can grasp why some would be skeptical of the Yahoo incident. Unfortunately this is a case where fear is overriding the ability to logically decipher the situation.

Yahoo’s spam filters are incredibly useful in fending off spam, viruses, and other harmful information being sent to its users daily. Due to a flux in email containing occupywallst.org, the filters simply did their job and blocked the outgoing emails. I wonder if the skeptic protesters would prefer Yahoo to lower their spam filter level in order to avoid any possible future conundrum. Perhaps if Yahoo were to oblige and allow those pesky spam emails to infiltrate all of their users inboxes. I would be very intrigued to find the response of said skeptics when their email systems shut down or witness their computers crash through a virus. 

When there are faults in the system, responsible corporations such as Yahoo should resolve the issue in a timely and just manner. Why? Because if Yahoo loses public support based on a lack of service, it loses money and the power to continue to innovate and help the public. Perhaps the protesters and skeptics should stop causing a raucous over the problems in the economy and look to working with such corporations to better the world we all live in.