Must Read Alaska newsletter gets a dose of cancel culture by MailChimp email provider

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Without explanation, the email bulk service MailChimp canceled the account of Must Read Alaska on Friday morning, causing a six-hour delay in getting the Friday newsletter out to Alaskans.

The Must Read Alaska newsletter is the most widely read newsletter in Alaska, and has been in existence since 2015, using the MailChimp distribution service. Must Read Alaska provides conservative content on topics of interest of Alaskans.

The notice from MailChimp only stated that the content violated the company’s “acceptable use policy.” The company provided no response to MRAK’s request for clarification.

The abrupt cancellation by MailChimp has prompted MRAK to move to another email provider, and the newsletter is now out to 10,000 of the 13,000 email addresses in the MRAK universe. It will take several days to restore the newsletter and to ensure that all the addresses are imported into the new system, and the content will be abbreviated as I adjust to the new platform.

I appreciate everyone who reached out today to ask me if the newsletter went out this morning. The answer is the newsletter went out at about 2 pm Alaska time to a much smaller list than usual. But we are not defeated.

Meanwhile, the Friday newsletter is available at this link: https://conta.cc/3IlNnsw

29 COMMENTS

  1. Is there a decent appropriate contact at MailChimp that can at least receive notes of, “Stop monkeying around” with folks you are told to hate and get back to providing an excellent service.” ?

  2. I thought cancel culture was popular here….like dragging Mayor Berkowitz through the mud for a personal matter with glee. In France the Prime minister married his high school teacher and know one gives a darn. Yet here in America we cancel folks all the time for their personal-private lifes.

    I have to admit regardless of one political stance, the whole cancel culture thing is in poor taste at best, and a danger to our countries foundational liberties.

    That said, can we expect not to be cancelled when we are vaccinated, yet promote anti-vaccination rhetoric?

  3. Our voices will be heard! I will vote with my wallet and cancel my MailChimp account now! I encourage everyone else out there to do the same.

    • C’mon you don’t even have a MailChimp account. People need to stop yelling so loudly over the internet. Be upset about real issues

  4. INTUIT is more than MailChimp, Turbotax & Quickbooks. Let your wallet do the talking by taking your business elsewhere.
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    • It would indeed be interesting to know, but the only thing they say is that the content violates their acceptable use policy. Oil prices? Amount of the Permanent Fund? Legislative calendar? There seems to be no expedient way to challenge it, although I have put in a request to find out why it was canceled. I don’t suppose I’ll hear back any time soon. – sd

      • I recently had a similar experience; Denali Federal Credit Union aka Nuvision, just notified its customers that it won’t be accommodating online banking as it has and as of 01/25, it ends. The only way to do online banking with them now is if you have an iPhone or iPad. They say it’s for mobile users, but the app they link you to ONLY works on iPhones and iPads. After 40 years, I need to find a new credit union with very little notice.

        I sure hope MRAK gets an apology. Vague and ambiguous “reasons” for cancellation just doesn’t cut it in my book. You do a great and difficult job.

  5. Too funny, complaining about cancel culture, now everyone is going to cancel something. You folks are always good for a laugh!

  6. Since the people at MailChimp are so quick to cancel something they had no problem taking payment for, I wonder if demanding a refund of the fee, may get their attention and an explanation?

  7. Declaring that MRAK is a victim of “Cancel Culture” is inaccurate to say the least. All social media, web hosting, email, and Internet companies have published Acceptable Use policies. As private enterprises, they have both the right to establish such policies, and the prerogative to enforce them.

    MRAK has long promoted anti-vax/anti-mask stories and viewpoints, and has allowed such material to be published on its site. Being both demonstrably false and harmful to public health, it should come as no surprise to MRAK that its accounts have been canceled.

    Now, if you want to talk about real Cancel Culture, consider what MRAK has been trying to do to Dr. Zink, Senator Murkowski, members of the Anchorage Assembly, State employees, and a host of others, all of whom have come unjustly under its fire.

    Of course, MRAK can easily solve this problem by running its own servers, thereby allowing it to publish freely, unbound by anything except for adherence to its own high journalistic standards.

    • A coward with a nom deplume. I wish Suzanne wouldn’t publish anyone who doesn’t use their actual legal name.

      What you cowardly, brain-washed want to be Gestapo agents don’t get is that you on the left don’t enjoy any intellectual or moral/ethical superiority, no matter what your communist professors have told you. We on the right don’t buy the communist/Democrat gaslighting operation. The whole Scamdemic is nothing but a propaganda operation to enable voter fraud. The Country is tired of it and tired of stupid people who drive alone in their Subaru or Prius wearing a mask.

      Maybe Soros et al. and the CCP can figure out a way to steal the next couple of elections and cement their coup d’etat, but if they don’t, there is going to be a terrible retribution.

      • How stupid do you think I am? Considering the violent nature of many on the Right, and their fetish for guns, I’d fear for my personal safety if I published my real name on this site. One need only look at 6 January or a host of other right wing-inspired violent acts to understand this. I can do without death threats, thank you very much.

        Or, maybe I’ll start posting under the name Arthur Chance, instead. See, it really doesn’t work,

    • This is what leftists miss about the whole “free speech” discussion. Let’s dispense with a few of the trivial arguments that come back up front:

      1. Yes, the constitution only limits the government’s ability to limit speech, not free enterprise. However, if you embrace the concept, you still (as a true liberal) will fight for an open forum for all views, regardless if you feel they are offensive. When you limit the speech of others on your platform, you can be leftist, you cannot be liberal.

      2. Speech that needs to be protected is offensive speech. Rainbows and unicorn farts, not so much.

      3. While I don’t agree on everything stated or published on MRAK (yes, I’m vaxxed since that is some sort of litnus test these days), I have not seen them “cancel “Dr. Zink, Senator Murkowski, members of the Anchorage Assembly, State employees, and a host of others”. I have seen SD publish divergent opinions, again, those opinions can differ from other media outlets – that’s ok. All of those people are public figures, and as long as MRAK isn’t “malicious” as defined by a court of law, that is within her pervue. If you don’t like it, don’t support MRAK (and I suspect you don’t anyway).

      Think about it a bit. Are you looking for disparate views of the world, or are you upset there is another voice in your echo chamber?

      • Actually, I look for truth and fairness. That is sometimes, although not always, found here.

        And of course, Americans are indeed entitled to freely express their opinions within bounds, and they can do so in many ways without fear of arrest or prosecution. What they don’t have is the right to express any view they wish using a private communication system. That’s the issue here.

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