AOL Liberal Bias

AOL | 6/11/03 | Outraged

[Dante3]

I read that Turner is no longer involved with CNN, Time-Warner, etc. but merely has a curtesy office but no say on policies. Was this article wrong?

[RedWhiteBlue]

Have you ever looked at AOL's chat rooms? The descriptions of some of the chat rooms are not very wholesome, to put it mildly. That is what you are supporting by using their service. AOL's dirty little secret -- they present their service as something for the whole family, but there is no way children should have access to those chat rooms.

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Thats why I do not allow mine into the chat rooms. If my 15 year old wants to download a file she has to get her mom or me to sign on our account for her. I keep her as restricted as I can.

BTW The entire web is full of things I try to keep her away from.

[Miss Marple]

I have no idea how to even access their chat rooms. And I am not going to be changing, because even if I could be persuaded, my husband is not going to do so.

Knock off bashing the aol users, please. Lots of the internet has slimy stuff on it, and I will bet that you inadvertently support something, somewhere, that isn't pure and wholesome as well.

[laredo44]

I hated it's liberal bias.

I've been meaning to dump liberal AOL for some time but haven't yet. Who can recommend a GREAT -- at a minimum -- balanced ISP? I don't want to get out of the frying pan into the fire if that's even possible.

[xdem]

There are many reasons to dislike AOL. The political ones have been well-covered here.

But there are technical reasons too.

When you install AOL, it often installs a proxy cache. After that, even if you change ISPs, every single http request will go through AOL's servers. This will slow down your transmissions. I've people's cable or DSL that works only slightly fatser than modem pseed because of this proxy. The proxy also endanger your privacy.

How do you get rid of this proxy cache? Edit the registry. Best of luck if you aren't IT savvy. Further, AOL tech support will apparently not help you remove the proxy.

The best to deal with AOL is to never use it, or totally re-install Windows from a bare hard drive if you have.

[fly_so_free]

They are the worst ISP. I have them. But not for much longer. They definately have a liberal bias. But I think it goes beyond that. I would swear to you, from time to time, that they delibrately block my access to my account. I have a suspicion that they monitor the activity of conservatives on line too. I can't prove any of this, but let's just say, some very strange things have happened with our AOL account. Then again maybe I'm being paranoid? Anyway I'm looking foward to getting rid of them. Not having to put up with the tons and tons and tons of spam and porn e-mails will be worth the price alone.

[ican'tbelieveit]

Aah, be a dear an educate her about AIM and buddy lists. They can be transferred, any questions, Freep me... I will point you in the right direction.

[ican'tbelieveit]

AOL dying would not be a good thing for the USA, as a lot of jobs hinge on it

I have quite a few friends still working for AOL also. But it is much worse than your friend is relating to you. I have had emails from supervisors forwarded on to me that relate how they plan on firing the customer service reps. They have outsourced most of the current positions to foreign countries. Next time you call tech support, and cannot understand the phone rep, you know why.

Not to mention the work environment at AOL is atrocious. They refuse to educate the reps on how to truly fix problems. The primary goal is to make you think you have been helped, sell you something (so AOL brings in the $$$ from the "partner") and get you off that phone in as limited time as possible. If you don't meet that time requirement, c'ya.

Not to mention how many people call AOL... there were times when there were 400+ calls waiting on hold, sometimes for an hour plus. And God forbid if you had to go to the bathroom when it wasn't a scheduled break.

I could go on, but I won't want to bore you all senseless.

[ican'tbelieveit]

They can't help you remove it because: 1) they are not aware of it; and 2) the last person you want going into your registry is an AOL tech.

[ican'tbelieveit]

You are being paranoid. AOL's primary income comes from ads. The more you are online, the more they can charge companies to advertise. But, AOL doesn't own the phone lines, or the phone numbers that you dial into to access their service. They are at the will of the telco's. If you want to be paranoid about being blocked access, chat with the telco.

[Landru]

"So they cite the AP and The New York Times as their sources but they intentionally omit a balancing fact…In short they are another piece of the liberal machinery bent on doing damage to truth and the Republican party."

What would anyone expect form a Time-Warner property?
Surely you cannot honestly be surprised by this junk.

Listen, I had AOHell for years (9 to be exact) & was always bugged by the sleeze & rightwing smearing, the same stuff you've cited above, OK.

Buttttt, one day I opened my "home page," & that did it.

There in full color is a photo of Garth Brooks.
The caption below boldly proclaims:

"GARTH BROOKS ROCKS FOR GAY RIGHTS!"

...& beneath Brooks' pic are a couple of other pics, too.
One's K.D.Lang & the other Melissa Etheridge.

I nearly threw up.

So??
I signed off, called AOL & *fired* 'em that very instant.
When the AOHell clown asked me, "Why would you leave AOL after all the years we'd *enjoyed* together?".
I matter-of-factly told the goofball in explicit detail my reaction to that day's homepage.
Told him that'd been "the final straw" & concluded our conversation by telling him, "I've simply outgrown AOL; so, good luck."

Wasn't much he could say to that, was there??

Do yourself a favor.

...dump AOL, today.

[Xenalyte]

That would break my vow of not teaching her about anything AOL-related, since unless I miss my guess, "AIM" stands for "AOL Instant Messenger."

Seriously, she does nothing more than e-mail and check out an occasional auction. She has not once, to the best of my (or anyone else's) knowledge, instant-messaged anyone.

[ican'tbelieveit]

The only thing with that is AIM is a freeware product, not wholly supported by AOL, in fact, not at all. But even in that respect, there are many other programs out there that "chat." And, if it is possible that she is referring to her email lists, those can be xferred into a 3rd party program also.

[Xenalyte]

If you live in its service area, Southwestern Bell has been great for me for more than four years - billed to my phone, $14.95 a month.

[fly_so_free]

Oh, so its some technical problem then. Strange things have happened with the account though, not just having the access blocked.

I've had the experience of calling them about a problem too. They put you on hold forever, then they try to sell you something. They don't help you.

[Xenalyte]

When I had SWBell dial-up, I dialed in on my account at her house. I showed her how much cleaner IE and Netscape are without all that AOL crap cluttering the screen; I showed her how much faster eBay auctions and Google searches were; I showed her how to get her e-mail with one click (which is two clicks less than she has to perform now).

No dice. I think "fear of change" pretty much sums it up.

[ican'tbelieveit]

Absolutely on the fear of change. And if she calls in to cancel, they staff the cancel line with salesmen whose sole job is to scare people into keeping their accounts, or flat out lie to them.

AOL is so terribly top heavy that just opening it reduces system resources to nil, which, in turn, results in the perceived slowness of the web.

[laredo44]

If you live in its service area, Southwestern Bell has been great for me for more than four years - billed to my phone, $14.95 a month.

Thank you for the info, unfortunately (in more ways than one) I live in Connecticut. I use AOL to access the Internet only. Immediately after connecting, I open my IE browser and stay away from the AOL proprietary stuff. I also stay away from their bias pretty well that way too -- but I know my subscription is supporting them. It's like not having Fox news and getting your TV news from CNN, and they get to count you as a viewer. I definitely need to dump them.

[ican'tbelieveit]

Yeap, see my post #69.