Mailchimp is an “all-in-one integrated marketing platform” that helps businesses send newsletters and other email to customers, prospects, and supporters. In January it blocked the Virginia Citizens Defense League from sending email to members about an annual rally in defense of gun rights and told the organization to get lost.
Some help.
According to the president of the Defense League, Philip Van Cleave, “There was no justification. They provided nothing. Basically, they just said we need to get our stuff and be prepared to move on.”
Well, Mailchimp’s boilerplate letter did also state that its “automated abuse-prevention system, Omnivore, detected serious risks associated with [your] account. . . . This risk is too great for us to continue to support the account.”
What risk? Oh, why bother to specify. The point is, the automated system detected it. I’m guessing that certain scary words were flagged, like “gun,” “Second Amendment,” “Constitution,” “rights.”
It seems that any kind of assembling on behalf of certain constitutionally protected rights or to petition for redress of grievances is to be regarded as a rationale for summarily ejecting politically right-leaning customers — at least by firms going along with this accelerating strategy to abet repression.
Mailchimp has violated the terms of service upheld by those who respect freedom of speech and do not respect arbitrary assaults on costumers. If you’re using it, look for an alternative.
The Defense League’s “Lobby Day” rally was peaceful again this year — as the group’s website informs, “just a lot of patriots sending a strong message to the General Assembly to keep their hands off our gun rights.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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3 replies on “Gun Group Deplatformed”
May the market appropriately punish Mailchimp for imposing its preferences and views on it customers. I hope the reaction is swift and significant – and spawns competition which understands it place and purpose.
Were I a Mailchimp shareholder I would be at the next annual meeting seeking to install executives and directors who were more understanding their function and legal duty is to seek to enhance shareholder value as opposed to championing their personal policy preferences in a manner which diminishes revenues, profitability and guarantees additional competition. They should be promoting their personal policy preferences on their own time, and their own dime.
VCDL is not the first group they “dumped” and most likely won’t be the last.
As john said in the comment above, it’s time to leave THEM.
Are there other service providers that can be counted on not to discriminate against customers who offend their sensibilities or software?
I fear we are seeing the demise of many small businesses / orgs, unless they are able to create and utilize their own networks of service providers.