CYBERsitter Correspondence Round 2

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The MoJo Wire:

To: bmilburn@solidoak.com
From: Jennifer Hattam
Subject: CYBERsitter blocking policy question
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997

Mr. Milburn,

It has been reported to The MoJo Wire that CYBERsitter is currently blocking The Ethical Spectacle (http://www.spectacle.org). Please let me know if this is correct, and if so, which part of your policy they violated (i.e. why are they being blocked?).

Thank you in advance for your reply.

Jennifer Hattam
MoJo Wire Fellow

Solid Oak’s response:

From: terminator@solidoak.com (The Terminator)
To: Jennifer Hattam
Organization: Solid Oak Software, Inc.
Subject: Re: CYBERsitter blocking policy question
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997

Dear Sender,

Unfortunately, we do not accept unsolicited e-mail that is intended to be harassing, is politically motivated, or in any way offensive to the employees at Solid Oak Software.

Therefor[sic], we will appreciate your cooperation in not contacting this company again regarding these issues.

What we can tell you is that CYBERsitter has absolutely no "hidden political agenda", regardless of what our critics might try to claim. The site in question is blocked by CYBERsitter simply because it publishes or maintains links to other sites that publ[sic]

When a customer purchases our product, they have every right to expect and demand that reasonable efforts be expended on our part to insure that once CYBERsitter is installed, its operation be as secure as possible.

Any site that publishes information that lessens the value of our product to our customers, or makes an overt effort to subvert parental rights to supervise and control the on-line activities of their minor children, will be blocked.

Thank-you

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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