America In Line
My Open Letter to AOL
by Alan Bisbort

Hartford, Ct.
Nov. 22, 2002

I have been a member of American Online (AOL) for five years, and I have increasingly noticed a political bias in the material you select to display on the opening page of your site.

I am usually pretty good at ignoring these sorts of things -- and this includes your shameless, ever-changing pay-for-display product placement and celebrity publicity shills -- but the dominance of your political content has become so ominous, so close to what George Orwell warned us against in 1984 and Homage to Catalonia, that I can no longer sit back and let it go by, uncommented upon.

During the week leading up to the November 5 election, in fact, it was so blatant that I could barely believe my eyes.

The pinnacle, or nadir, of this bias was the photograph of George W. Bush silhouetted against an American flag two days before the election. George Bush was not running for office; there was no news story even linked to the picture. There was, in short, no reason, aside from the political, to include such a blatantly propagandistic image. It was so clearly a subliminal message to AOL users to get in line and do what the "President" demands-give him full dictatorial powers.

The long and short of it is that AOL clearly has a pro-Bush, pro-GOP bias. To deny this would be to lie to me, so please don't deny it. I hate being lied to.

What I am suggesting to you is that you owe to America's sense of fair play and decency to at least offer equal time on your choice of images and links to the "other" major party (in which the majority of American voters are registered). You might even try to occasionally feature a story that suggests that One Party Rule, free reign to snoop on Americans, secret trials, secret energy policy meetings, secret hiding places for the Vice President, unprecedented military build up while people go without food, shelter and health insurance, etc. are not good things for a democracy, any democracy, regardless of where you stand on the political compass.

Finally, I wanted to issue a blanket complaint about the appallingly low level of discourse regularly displayed on the message posts linked to the major news stories that AOL has so carefully selected to share with its users. Every time I post a message, I am careful to explain myself as clearly and intelligently as I can, and I have never used obscenities or made veiled threats of violence against those with whom I disagree in my posts.

And yet, I am more often than not inundated with the most racist, threatening, nasty, offensive and just plain hate-filled messages I've ever heard anywhere. I'm no shrinking violet and I don't have a particulary thin skin normally, but sometimes I wonder if the AOL front office realizes what a festering pit of hatred is brewing under their name.

Let me give you an example from two days ago.

There were people in your chat room that day who, in response to the news story about the oil spill off the coast of Spain, who were making fun of the animals writhing in oil-soaked agony and mocking those people who registered concern and sadness about this. The insults were so vile and insulting that I might have thought I had staggered into the lowest depths of Dante's Inferno, the place reserved for only the most heinous and sinister of human souls. As far as I can figure, these people were showered with this rain of abuse for the simple reason that they admitted they love animals. When I peruse these sorts of postings and responses on AOL's news stories -- and, believe me, this day's postings were really not out of the ordinary for your service -- I am sickened and saddened by the human race. And I wonder whether all this talk of "evil" "out there" in the world is not being terribly misplaced.

In short, you really ought to demand that people raise the level of their discourse on AOL's public forums to that of, even marginally, adults.

But, seeing as how that might be an impossible request to fulfill, I am asking you to at least be more sensitive to the fact that more than half of America's voters did not choose Bush and Cheney and that many of these people are AOL users. We do not enjoy waking up each day to the grinning maw of Trent Lott or the vacuous stare of George W. Bush or the somber visage of Rumsfeld and Rove. Things like this are, in fact, capable of ruining our days before it even gets started. And it goes without saying that we can easily take our business elsewhere. There are many more internet service providers in this world and they are not all "In Line" with your views.

Sincerely,
Alan Bisbort

Alan Bisbort is a columnist for the Hartford Advocate. His more recent book is "Famous Last Words" (Pomegranate). He is co-author (with Parke Puterbaugh) of "California Beaches", the 3rd edition of which will be published in February 2003.