AOL CENSORSHIP and the moral authority

[Guest dstud4hire]

Well, I couldn't believe it...I am sitting in the San Fran m4m room on aol since I was planning a visit there...and all of a sudden this one individual sends me an instant message on how I am in violation of Terms of serrvive etc at AOL,and that he/she was going to report me...(THey had no profile of course) Lo and behold, within minutes of our chat, which I tried to be very nice and innocent, I rec'd my TOS warning from aol, and my profile had been deleted, (which proves to me that AOL must not even investigate the profile...cause it happened waaaaayyy too fast. )

 

So, I created another profile, but have been warned that I must delete that screen name...(I am choosing to keep it for now) But what amazed me was that it was while I was in the San Fran room, (which I assume to be a bastian for more tolerance) and have never had a problem in my own home town aol room in St. Louis (which lies on the edge of the Bible belt).

 

And what frustrates me to NO end, is that fact that someone out there chooses to be my moral barrometer!!! That's what realy got me...I wanted so much to write that person back, but resisted the temptation! (Hence, I'm on here venting)

 

Though I am really thinking about leaving AOL after that experience.... I want to address this with them, to have them get rid of my TOS warning, but of course, with the fine line one walks as an escort (so to speak),...well...you understand.....

 

Anyway, I've had this email address so long, and so many of my regulars know me by this......so, I don't know what to do....oh well..that was my frustrating experience with AOL!

[Guest Charon]

AOL sucks. AOL has sucked for a very long time.

 

I'm surprised that people are still surprised at this kind of thing because they've been doing it nigh on forever.

[Guest cp8036]

Dstud,

 

Sorry your first impression of SF is not a good one.

 

Something related happened to me on recent trip to LA. I was staying at the Marriott, and they had an in-room internet service via the TV and a wireless keyboard. Since I didn't have my laptop, I paid $9.95 for a day's service of the web access.

 

I tried to log onto this site, and access was denied. I went to a couple other gay sites (not adult rated), and I was denied again. I called to the front desk and inquired if there was a problem that some sites cannot be accessed. She replied they block some sites that the management feels are inappropiate. I started to ask how can they determine what was is appropiate for my eyes, but I refrained as she was a young night clerk.

 

At checkout there was a management figure, and I asked him about this. I complained that the service said www access in your for $9.95/day, and no comments about censoring some sites. He apologized, and removed the charge. He didn't offer any explanation.

 

SO, if anyone goes to a Marriott, be warned. Unless, you want to pay this charge and just surf sites about the Osmonds and the Mormon Church.

[Guest dstud4hire]

>Dstud,

>

>Sorry your first impression of SF is not a good one.

>

 

 

Well, my 1st impression of sitting in one of the SF AOL rooms wasn't a great one...but my impression when I finally did get there was great!

 

I had 2 awesome clients that I had emailed prior to my departure...they each contacted me, and I had a blast with 2 great guys in a short visit!

 

I was still shocked about running into someone on line that should create such a problem for me!!! (c'est la vie!)

 

Anyway, I will probably create another screen name with hotmail or something, and I will be forewarned if ever I pay for internet access via a hoptel (or I should just invest in a lap top for 'work')

 

Gabe

[Boston Guy]

I find that kind of censorship incredibly annoying.

 

A suggestion: I stay in a lot of Marriott hotels and I always have my laptop with me. I always purchase the high-speed internet connection, but don't use the Web-TV option if they have it. (It sounds like that's what you got.)

 

Instead I get the regular, high-speed connection. It's also $9.95 per day and provides an ethernet connection for my laptop. I've never found any censoring at all on these connections.

 

A word of warning, though: people who are connecting their laptops to high-speed hotel connections really should use a personal firewall for the entire time they are connected. If you don't already have one, Zone Alarm is pretty good and free for personal use.

 

http://www.zonelabs.com/

[BewareofNick]

AOL frequently deletes escort screen names and profiles. The person who did it may not even have been in SF, they are just crusading against escorts. Read profiles such as SmallTownJohn1, which shows you some of the creative ways that people get around the profile Nazis. A while back, AOL added the word escort to words not allowed to be used in chat room names. Now they are called Companionsm4m.

[Guest dstud4hire]

>A word of warning, though: people who are connecting their

>laptops to high-speed hotel connections really should use a

>personal firewall for the entire time they are connected.

>If you don't already have one, Zone Alarm is pretty good and

>free for personal use.

>

>http://www.zonelabs.com/

 

stupid question...but what is a firewall, and will it protect me from what I understand can be some hefty charges in the room for staying on longer than a certain period of time....a friend told me as long as yopu log off every 10 mins or so...the charges that a hotel may levy because you are using their phone lines for 'puter use can be avoided....don't know whether that's like that in all hotels though....he was at a hotel in Houston when he had that prob.

 

anyway...what is a firewall? (for us 'puter illiterate!)

[Boston Guy]

>stupid question...but what is a firewall, and will it

>protect me from what I understand can be some hefty charges

>in the room for staying on longer than a certain period of

>time....a friend told me as long as yopu log off every 10

>mins or so...the charges that a hotel may levy because you

>are using their phone lines for 'puter use can be

>avoided....don't know whether that's like that in all hotels

>though....he was at a hotel in Houston when he had that

>prob.

>

>anyway...what is a firewall? (for us 'puter illiterate!)

 

There's no such thing as a stupid question. :-) Well, at least usually, and this certainly isn't one.

 

The term derives from its use in non-computer industries, where a firewall is something that will prevent a fire from passing beyond it. With networking, it's something that prevents unauthorized access from spreading from one network to another.

 

It helps to remember that the Internet is a very large network, not unlike the networks that exist in many companies -- just much, much larger. In that context, all of the PC's connected to the Internet become part of the larger network. In many cases, those computers are connected to smaller networks which are themselves then connected to the Internet.

 

For example, suppose you have a PC on your desk at work. It's probably connected to your office network. That's probably connected to the Internet.

 

At each point, there are certain kinds of things you'd like to make available to other users and some things you want to keep secure. Using the office metaphor again, you might want to keep your personal files secure from snooping by your colleagues (that's hard to do these days, especially legally). But you might well want to share your sales database with the entire sales force. However, it's unlikely you'd want to share your sales data with your competitors.

 

There are many ways of connecting computers to a network and lots of ways of connecting networks together to make a larger network. But, however you do it, there are bound to be security issues. We're all aware these days of the threats posed by hackers (a misnomer; the bad guys are really called crackers), viruses, worms, etc.

 

So when you connect your PC to the Internet in any way, you are making a network connection that is two-way. In some cases, there is a lot more risk to your personal PC than in others. But what you really want in most cases is to be able to access the Internet but not to have someone from the outside access your PC and either read stuff on it or, worse, write stuff to it.

 

A firewall is a device designed to prevent unauthorized access from outside a given part of a network. Firewalls can be based on hardware or software. For personal use, a firewall like Zone Alarm is a program that you download to your computer. It then monitors network traffic to make sure that what is going on is what you want.

 

It can slow down your network access somewhat, but usually not by too much. And since the protection you get from running a firewall can make the difference between someone screwing up your computer on you or not, a bit of a slowdown in access is an easy price to pay.

 

To answer your other question, no it doesn't affect your hotel charges. Anyone who is dialing out from a hotel should carefully check the hotel telephone rate card. Some hotels offer free local calls and I've been dialed out sometimes for twelve hours in a row. But most charge and a common trick is to charge something like $1.00 for the first 20 minutes and $1.25 for each additional five minutes. Or perhaps the first 20 will be free. In either case, if you want to be dialed out for a while, it will save you money if you keep re-connecting every 19 minutes or so.

 

BG

[SoCal]

I will echo something that I believe HooBoy has said in the past. All these escorts on AOL really should have another e-mail address, perhaps making it their "main" e-mail as opposed to AOL e-mail. Even if it's just a Yahoo/Hotmail type account, the odds of getting deleted for inappropriate behavior is minimal. They can list these e-mail addresses in their AOL profiles, and maintain their AOL provacative screen names until they get deleted. Then they pop back up with a new (provacative!) screen name, but the SAME generic e-mail address can be used.

 

There are people out there who just report any and all who appear to be escorts. I encountered a jerk the other day with the screen name "ReportDaWhore" or something like that. He campaigned actively in the chat rooms to report memebers who even hinted of escort activity in their profile!!

 

It only makes good business sense for escorts to have a more permanent e-mail address than just AOL.

[BewareofNick]

Depending on what he writes to you in an IM or e-mail, you get a TOS on him for harrassment.

[Guest DCescortBOY]

AOL's software used to prevent you from having the combination of letters "WHORE" in any screen name or profile. that might have changed.

regardless, the reportdawhore screenname violates TOS just as much as an escort's. next time i sign on, maybe i'll send a note. :-)

[Boston Guy]

Yeah, you can play the same game with them: engage them in an IM and they're almost certainly going to break one of AOL's rules. Then hit the button and report them. :-)

[Guest cp8036]

Glad the trip was good, and both clients came through.

 

From what other escorts have told me, be very, very careful about planning a trip here based on bookings. SF is infamous for flakes, or people that just forget to keep an appointment. One guy had 3 of 6 not show up or call.

[Guest jeffOH]

I received a warning from AOL that I was in violation a while back. I

just deleted any references to escorting from my profile and haven't had any problems since.

 

JEFF

jeff4hire@aol.com

[Guest cp8036]

Thanks for tips BG.

 

Now, I travel with a laptop, so I will never pay for the tv based internet access again.

 

Many hotels seem to have limits on the length of outgoing calls. I have seen many that are 60 mins for $1.00, and then the charge per minute after that is obscene. I set my cell phone alarm for 59 mins, and log-off and log-on again.

 

Come to think of it, I don't stay at Marriotts anymore. Sheraton and Westins have nicer towels and a better frequent guest program.

[+ deej]

Great explanation, BG!

 

I'll add the following, though. A personal firewall is not just for when you're hooked up to a hotel's broadband connection. Even dial-up users may benefit from it.

 

Traditional wisdom has been that since dial-up users get a different IP address every time they connect they were fairly safe, but these days the hacker/cracker crowd knows which blocks of IP addresses the major providers use and routinely scan them looking for a computer to break into. It works a lot like groping in a dark bar. First they find out if there's anything there, and then they see how far they can get.

 

I've mentioned this here before, but to see if you need a firewall go to http://www.grc.com and run their "Shields up" and "Probe my ports" tests. (The latter should particularly appeal to this crowd. }> ) Once you've run the tests, install ZoneAlarm and re-run the tests. You should be in "stealth" mode.

 

The last time I was on dial-up, I was *amazed* at how many times my computer was probed (and those probes were repelled by ZA) by computers all over the world.

 

A firewall is essential protection these days just as much as a virus scanning utility. (And if you're using McAffee's virus scan, the latest version comes with a free firewall. Haven't seen it tested yet, but it's gotta be better than nothing.)

[SoCal]

Well, I was slightly off on this crusader's screen name, it's "Report da Ho" and you can see from the AOL profile there what he's all about. I was going to cut/paste his AOL profile here, but maybe that's not cool?

[guyinsf]

I read an article about AOL's TOS "police" about a year ago. According to that article, profiles are not deleted because AOL is seeking out "offensive" ones but because someone complains about a specific one. I don't know what documentation needs to be provided when making a complaint, but my guess is that it is more than the simple use of the word "escort" in the screen name or profile. The reason I say this is that it would be easy for any user or AOL staff person to find escorts and delete them all quickly. Simply do a member profile search for the word "escort" and a specific city name and you'll get a list of profiles with that word in that location. Of course, sometimes these profiles contains references to cars (Ford Escorts) or other non-sexual uses of the word, but usually it is clear that the member is selling sex for money. If AOL really wanted to rid its membership of this, it could be done easily and quickly. I think what AOL really wants to do is have it both ways: make a lot of money off the gay guys cruising for sex (for free and for pay) but then deleting profiles when someone takes offense, therefore creating the image to that person and his/her associates that AOL upholds certain "standards."