After brief delay, Verizon Wireless OKs messages on abortion

Verizon Wireless got caught up briefly in abortion politics after denying a request from a pro-choice organization to use its network for text messages-which the carrier swiftly remedied after a public outcry.
The carrier had rejected a request from NARAL Pro-Choice America, which supports abortion rights, to set up an SMS alert system to which customers could opt in via short code. Various entities, from businesses to charities to political groups, can apply for short codes through a CTIA short code program and then wireless providers are given a list, which they typically approve.
However, Verizon Wireless initially rejected the request from NARAL, based on an internal policy on not allowing short codes for messages touching on controversial social issues. NARAL took the rejection public, telling The New York Times that Verizon Wireless’ policy interfered with political activism.
“No company should be allowed to censor the message we want to send to people who have asked us to send it to them,” NARAL president Nancy Keenan told the Times.
Verizon Wireless executives reviewed the situation and “determined it was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy,” according to carrier spokesman Jeffrey Nelson. The policy was developed prior to adequate spam filters and “was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children.”
According to Verizon Wireless, the short code is now operational, and NARAL has been notified of its availability.
“The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident,” said Nelson. He added, “Our internal policy had not been updated over the last while, to reflect our reality and our customers’ reality, and how text messaging is being used.”
The controversy also raised issues of net neutrality, or the extent to which wireline and wireless operators should be able to control or prioritize the content their users can access. CTIA has notified Congress of its opposition to the imposition of “any rules which would impose nondiscriminatory net neutrality requirements on network operators” and said that such rules “would be especially problematic if applied in the wireless context,” according to a letter to the House committee on energy and commerce.