Thursday, July 3, 2014

The Times Picayune: "Conservative website hotel blackouts..."

"[T]he curious matter of conservative websites consistently getting blocked at the Hyatt Place hotel in Riverhead, Long Island. The company that runs the desktops available to guests there, Uniguest, did finally respond to my query, but several e-mailers from around the country described similar experiences at hotels blocking access to perfectly legitimate conservative websites."
The Uniguest e-mail was "sent on behalf of Uniguest's Marketing Director who was traveling and not able to respond personally." Here's the meat of it:
"Was sorry to hear about your disenchantment in being limited in your ability to surf freely. As I trust you can appreciate, in an effort to protect our Internet users in hotels and other public spaces throughout the world, content filters are placed on our software that attempt to provide a safe browsing experience free from explicit sites and hateful content. Importantly, in some instances, the filters rules have unintended consequences and block sites that common sense would deem safe. For example, occasionally small portions of content will trigger the filter until that content is removed. This can temporarily affect websites with frequently updated content as the filter operates in real-time. The block would occur whether the domain name was Disney.com, CNN.com or any other site that meets the filter's threshold of flagged keywords.

"Thank you for bringing this to our attention. It appears that the problem has resolved itself and the websites you pointed out in your article are available for viewing at the writing of this email."
I was a bit puzzled by that "hateful content" bit, and unsure if Uniguest means sites like The Drudge Report, Instapundit, and PowerLine are now available on all the company's computers or just at the Hyatt Place in Riverhead. I've asked for clarification on those points.

The column also generated considerable e-mail, almost all of it from people who said they have experienced very similar blackouts of conservative sites at hotels across the country. (read more)

13 comments:

Calypso Facto said...

Just like the constant liberal blare of CNN at the airport instead of the far more popular (judging by ratings) Fox News.

KCFleming said...

What is the purpose of pissing off 43% of your customers?

edutcher said...

You also see it in news apps for phones and tablets.

Everything is Puffington, Slate, AP, MSLSD.

No HotAir, Ace, Gateway, etc.

ricpic said...

What's the problem? They're blocking the truth...er, hate speech.

--Schmendrick

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Instapundit at the sidebar says that craft beer is growing in popularity.

Must be the same people watching soccer and not noticing that they can't access conservative websites.

OH NOES!!!!1!!!!!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Maybe that's why TOP went all left.

She didn't want to get the Tim Howard treatment ;)

The Dude said...

She went no where - she has always been a communist, but is now more willing to admit her totalitarian leanings. After all, they "won".

KCFleming said...

We'll see this weekend if my preferred sites are blacked at the hotel.

Chip S. said...

It ain't just hotels. I found that a couple of right sites were blocked at my car dealership.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Keep a sharp eye Pogo.

We can't let them get away with that.

TTBurnett said...

What is the purpose of pissing off 43% of your customers?

Because that 43%, if doctrinaire conservatives, have no money. They are also dangerous, snaggle-tooth, white trailer trash with AR-16s in their suitcases, smelling up the property.

No decent, modern person wants them anywhere near.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Don't know what market you're in, but every time I tune my car radio to some conservative talk station the ads are for ways to stall mortgage foreclosure, erase your credit card debt, get a payday loan, start a business from home or get a lawyer to represent you because you're a victim and big insurance companies are only in business to stick it to the little guy.

Oh, that and some sort of "super-beta-prostate" snake oil or something along those lines.

TTBurnett said...

Eric has nailed the demographic.