How Do You Feel About CENSORSHIP

[AWATCH]

I just emailed my brother a copy of a just joke posted by JJ [hilarious] and received a message back saying Email denied - "content violation" -, by his company
Now the joke posted by JJ is adult in nature, I thought it was cute and not vulgar in my opinion, I just wanted to share them with my brother, who by the way sends me some really vulgar stuff some times,lol......
I do not think any body has the right to censor your mail...

What do you folks think about this.

[redshirt1957]

We have secure and unsecure networks at work and I decide what can be sent, to whome, content, and the like. A business is not a democracy. As long as you obey the laws and apply rules equally, I can set policy. In Georgia you have the right to view anything kept on a business computer and the right to tape conversations, if the employee is using business provided communication devices. Hell, I could require that all employees wear pink shirts, and if applied equally amongst the workforce, fire those that do not abide. I worked for a Big Eight accounting firm many years ago and you could only wear a white or blue dress shirt. No stripes or patterns.

[daveathall]

Whats wrong with pink shirts?

[redshirt1957]

Originally Posted by daveathall

Whats wrong with pink shirts?

Pink is the new salmon.

[cody p]

the key words are "his company". i'm sure if you sent it to his private email it would get through. "his company" probably only wants him to get work-related stuff, not dirty jokes.

[AWATCH]

Originally Posted by cody p

the key words are "his company". i'm sure if you sent it to his private email it would get through. "his company" probably only wants him to get work-related stuff, not dirty jokes.

This is not true, we email each other three four times a week, some casual conversations, some jokes, this particular email picks out some key words. for instance, my wife got a new pussy cat no joke intended and we sent a picture so we could print and share with his wife and the censoring program did not let it pass because of the word pussy. I have a problem with someone deciding what words can or cannot go through, to me that is stepping on your rights....Now to not offend redshirt i can agree that a company you work for can have rules that require certain things. But in this case we are not breaking any rules, some computer program is censoring mail based on certain words, which is why it bothers me.

[redshirt1957]

Not offended at all. We have all kinds of filters, snoopers, and such, but it is not an issue about content, it is an issue about sexual harrassment. All it takes if for an employee to see something "Offensive" and if it is the company policy to allow such content; it could be a hugh problem. Since I am the owner and would carry full responsibilty, I take the safe road. I undersand the censorship issue, but the issue of an employee causing my money to go to pay for lawsuits or settlements, is a type of financial censorship I will not let happen. Again, a business is not a democracy or republic. When it comes down to it, they are more like a dictaorship. Remember, from my vantage point, it is my money and well being that is at stake. Now with all that said, we have around 75 employees and only three have left, two went to work for the client and one came back from California to rejoin us, since 2003.

[TheVTCGuy]

I hate it, but since it is the companie's network, you must abide by there rules and regulations. At mine, they are VERY strict about stuff like that, even policing which sites you can access from your computer. I don't like it, but I understand and agree, if you are using the companies network, then you don't have free speech rights or anything like that, you must conform to their rules. The way around it? Get an Iphone or similar device and he can receive send any E-mails he wants.

[redshirt1957]

Originally Posted by TheVTCGuy

I hate it, but since it is the companie's network, you must abide by there rules and regulations. At mine, they are VERY strict about stuff like that, even policing which sites you can access from your computer. I don't like it, but I understand and agree, if you are using the companies network, then you don't have free speech rights or anything like that, you must conform to their rules. The way around it? Get an Iphone or similar device and he can receive send any E-mails he wants.

Or you could be like me and be the administrator and break all the rules. You just gave me an idea. We have a place for the smokers to go so maybe a secure Porn room would work?

[BarkMaster]

I think the company is totally within their rights, of course.

Just send to his personal email at home.

Problem solved.

[AWATCH]

Originally Posted by redshirt1957

Not offended at all. We have all kinds of filters, snoopers, and such, but it is not an issue about content, it is an issue about sexual harrassment. All it takes if for an employee to see something "Offensive" and if it is the company policy to allow such content; it could be a hugh problem. Since I am the owner and would carry full responsibilty, I take the safe road. I undersand the censorship issue, but the issue of an employee causing my money to go to pay for lawsuits or settlements, is a type of financial censorship I will not let happen. Again, a business is not a democracy or republic. When it comes down to it, they are more like a dictaorship. Remember, from my vantage point, it is my money and well being that is at stake. Now with all that said, we have around 75 employees and only three have left, two went to work for the client and one came back from California to rejoin us, since 2003.

Thank you for the lesson, as a business owner myself, i can understand. Let me ask a question, since you seem to be familier with the computer programs, is it just words that trigger a denial of a letter and what happens when as i said in my last post when an innocent word gets a whole message denied it seems like a possibility exist to upset a potential customer. If i were a customer and my "innocent" emails were denied i would be upset. when i was trying to send my brother the pussy cat picture it took me a while to figure out why it wasn't going through. I was as i said an innocent emailer in that situation.
BTW your company sounds like a good place to workyou hiring

[redshirt1957]

Another fact is that some of our computers could affect content going out over the air, so in that case, zero tolerance. We have networks that VPN into our client's networks and not as strick, but close. For our e-mail and employee networks, I am a little less draconian. All I do is give them a print out each month of the sites they visited, and by magic, the adult site surfing went away. As you know, the porn sites load you up with all kind of viruses and trojan horses and such. I did stop using word filters on the general employee networks as I ran into the same problems with innocent words blocking emails. When I say I, I mean my IT guys. I can barely turn on my wife, much less a computer. I still have not figured out how to use spell check.

My wife runs our companies and she is fond of saying that our employees love to hate me.

[Saxon007]

Originally Posted by 777

I think the company is totally within their rights, of course.

Just send to his personal email at home.

Problem solved.

The proper solution.

BTW, I suspect the chances of a customer getting mail blocked are somewhat slim. Even if they are blocked I can't imagine them getting upset, the words in the filters are not generally used in business conversations (although medical scenarios can cause some issues).

I like the fact that the people I am doing business with are focused on my business and not reading jokes or surfing porn.

[redshirt1957]

Originally Posted by Saxon007

The proper solution.

BTW, I suspect the chances of a customer getting mail blocked are somewhat slim. Even if they are blocked I can't imagine them getting upset, the words in the filters are not generally used in business conversations (although medical scenarios can cause some issues).

I like the fact that the people I am doing business with are focused on my business and not reading jokes or surfing porn.

The wife perfers I do that at work because, if not, I would have more time to mess things up by making daily sweeping changes. She got tired of cleaning up all of my messes.

[R1@160@alltimes]

Our network admins blocked TRF on the third day of me joining They've said that it is taking away from the network bandwidth (probably from all of the hi-res close ups of our watches) and access need to be restricted.

I did find a way around it, though

[JBat]

It is not censorship. It is a private business and they get to set their own policy with regards to the types of communications received and sent by their computers, regardless of whether software was used to flag the e-mail. It has nothing to do with rights. It is a private business. Redshirt is spot-on here.

If the government was to attempt to intervene in the lives of private citizens and ban certain reading materials, etc, then it would be censorship.

[TheVTCGuy]

Originally Posted by redshirt1957

Or you could be like me and be the administrator and break all the rules. You just gave me an idea. We have a place for the smokers to go so maybe a secure Porn room would work?

Just make sure to send me the URL Bubba!

[Timber Loftis]

It's not censorship so much as it is an effort to avoid all the thousands of C1al1s spam emails companies have to filter out everyday.

[AIKO]

Originally Posted by AWATCH

I just emailed my brother a copy of a just joke posted by JJ [hilarious] and received a message back saying Email denied - "content violation" -, by his company
Now the joke posted by JJ is adult in nature, I thought it was cute and not vulgar in my opinion, I just wanted to share them with my brother, who by the way sends me some really vulgar stuff some times,lol......
I do not think any body has the right to censor your mail...

What do you folks think about this.

Their business computers, their right to filter out your dirty jokes.

[Leighton]

I'm anti-censorship, but what you are describing is not censorship in my book. My brother and I communicate through personal email addresses and all our questionable content gets through with no problem!

[mailman]

Originally Posted by redshirt1957

Pink is the new salmon.

And salmon is the other pink meat

[Trurolexer]

Like my Favorite band Ramones said...

SencorSh!t!!!