Verizon Rejects Text Messages From Abortion Rights Group
By Adam Liptak
The New York Times
Thursday 27 September 2007
Saying it had the right to block "controversial or unsavory" text
messages, Verizon Wireless has rejected a request from Naral Pro-
Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon's mobile
network available for a text-message program.
The other leading wireless carriers have accepted the program,
which allows people to sign up for text messages from Naral by
sending a message to a five-digit number known as a short code.
Text messaging is a growing political tool in the United States
and a dominant one abroad, and such sign-up programs are used by many
political candidates and advocacy groups to send updates to
supporters.
But legal experts said private companies like Verizon probably
have the legal right to decide which messages to carry. The laws that
forbid common carriers from interfering with voice transmissions on
ordinary phone lines do not apply to text messages.
The dispute over the Naral messages is a skirmish in the larger
battle over the question of "net neutrality" - whether carriers or
Internet service providers should have a voice in the content they
provide to customers.
"This is right at the heart of the problem," said Susan Crawford,
a visiting professor at the University of Michigan law school,
referring to the treatment of text messages. "The fact that wireless
companies can choose to discriminate is very troubling."
In turning down the program, Verizon, one of the nation's two
largest wireless carriers, told Naral that it "does not accept issue-
oriented (abortion, war, etc.) programs - only basic, general
politician-related campaigns (Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, etc.)."
Naral provided copies of its communications with Verizon to The New
York Times.
Nancy Keenan, Naral's president, said Verizon's decision
interfered with political speech and advocacy.
"No company should be allowed to censor the message we want to
send to people who have asked us to send it to them," Ms. Keenan
said. "Regardless of people's political views, Verizon customers
should decide what action to take on their phones. Why does Verizon
get to make that choice for them?"
A spokesman for Verizon said the decision turned on the subject
matter of the messages and not on Naral's position on abortion. "Our
internal policy is in fact neutral on the position," the spokesman,
Jeffrey Nelson, said. "It is the topic itself" - abortion - "that has
been on our list."
Mr. Nelson suggested that Verizon may be rethinking its
position. "As text messaging and multimedia services become more and
more mainstream," he said, "we are continuing to review our content
standards." The review will be made, he said, "with an eye toward
making more information available across ideological and political
views."
Naral provided an example of a recent text message that it had
sent to supporters: "End Bush's global gag rule against birth control
for world's poorest women! Call Congress. (202) 224-3121. Thnx! Naral
Text4Choice."
Messages urging political action are generally thought to be at
the heart of what the First Amendment protects. But the First
Amendment limits government power, not that of private companies like
Verizon.
In rejecting the Naral program, Verizon appeared to be acting
against its economic interests. It would have received a small fee to
set up the program and additional fees for messages sent and received.
Text messaging programs based on five- and six-digit short codes
are a popular way to receive updates on news, sports, weather and
entertainment. Several of the leading Democratic presidential
candidates have used them, as have the Republican National Committee,
Save Darfur and Amnesty International.
Most of the candidates and advocacy groups that use text message
programs are liberal, which may reflect the demographics of the
technology's users and developers. A spokeswoman for the National
Right to Life Committee, which is in some ways Naral's anti-abortion
counterpart, said, for instance, that it has not dabbled in text
messaging.
Texting has proven to be an extraordinarily effective political
tool. According to a study released this month by researchers at
Princeton and the University of Michigan, young people who received
text messages reminding them to vote in the November 2006 were 4.2
percentage points more likely to go to the polls. The cost per vote
generated, the study said, was much smaller than other sorts of get-
out-the-vote efforts.
Around the world, the phenomenon is even bigger.
"Even as dramatic as the adoption of text messaging for political
communication has been in the United States, we've been quite slow
compared to the rest of the world," said James E. Katz, the director
of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers
University. "It's important in political campaigns and political
protests, and it has affected the outcomes of elections."
Timothy Wu, a law professor at Columbia, said it was possible to
find analogies to Verizon's decision abroad. "Another entity that
controls mass text messages is the Chinese government," Professor Wu
said.
Jed Alpert, the chief executive officer of Mobile Commons, which
says it is the largest provider of mobile services to political and
advocacy groups, including Naral, said he had never seen a decision
like Verizon's.
"This is something we haven't encountered before, that is very
surprising and that we're concerned about," Mr. Alpert said.
Professor Wu pointed to a historical analogy. In the 19th
century, he said, Western Union, the telegraph company, engaged in
discrimination based on the political views of people who sought to
send telegrams. "One of the eventual reactions was the common carrier
rule," Professor Wu said, which required telegraph and then phone
companies to accept communications from all speakers on all topics.
Some scholars said such a rule was not needed for text messages
because market competition was sufficient to ensure robust political
debate.
"Instead of having the government get in the game of regulating
who can carry what, I would get in the game of promoting as many
options as possible," said Christopher S. Yoo, a law professor at the
University of Pennsylvania. "You might find text-messaging companies
competing on their openness policies."
