Aggressive Email Filtering Blocks Political Debate

Stephen writes "Many of us have spam blockers operating on our mail. But according to this BBC article, when British members of parliament starting having their emails filtered last month, it stopped them talking about genuine political business such as the Sexual Offences Bill, and prevented them receiving some constituents' emails." This problem has bit me on the bum a few times too. About 1 message in every 250 spam is a false hit. Course thats about once a day :(

Comments

true story

[circletimessquare]

i got in a fight with an ex-girlfriend and we ceased speaking for awhile

i became further incensed because she never contacted me after the fight

we didn't talk for 2 months

finally, i contacted her and said "why didn't you get back to me??!!"

she said, "you didn't get my email?"

i looked, and there it was, 2 months back, in my spam folder (yes, i keep all of my spam, the folder is gigantic)

although you could make a joke about emails from girlfriends being called spam, in this particular case, considering the chance at reconciliation that was lost and the feelings involved, it was definitely not funny at all ;-(

so i can say, with certainty, that my personal life has been greatly and adversely affected by spam.

you can hate spam for all sorts of reasons, but for me, it's personal.