When a popular email marketing and automation platform Mailchimp recently changed its terms of service, many of its customers were shocked to learn that the new rules state the company can now arbitrarily, “at its own discretion,” decide what passes off as misinformation, and ban them.
One of the questions those unhappy with the change asked at the time was: what’s a viable alternative that will allow me to continue to promote my content and business, while respecting my right to free speech and without making me the victim of arbitrary censorship?
One of them is MKISIO, that says its focus is to provide an easy way to use a newsletter service that gives users control, contains no hidden tracking, offers strong encryption, and boasts a commitment to free speech.
MKISIO doesn’t censor or put restrictions on the kind of content its users are allowed to distribute using the service.
Founder and owner Michael Gracie explains that he started the project last year, and launched it late in the summer of 2020.
Gracie adds that MKISIO was started as a personal challenge, and that he was building it expecting that censorship and deplatforming would increase, including in this segment of the tech industry.
“(I) am only mildly surprised that email newsletter publishers are now being directly targeted,” he told Reclaim The Net, commenting on email platforms like Mailchimp starting to ban users for misinformation.
As for whether there is a link between the recent return to the open standard of email newsletters and censorship on social media, Gracie did not rule out this possibility.
He explains it by the nature of email as a point-to-point method of communication, while newsletters, which function as “point-to-multipoint” further improve on this, being “an opt-in relationship.”
“I believe there are a lot of people getting tired of having everyone look over their shoulder on social media, and dealing with the associated risk of having a ‘friend of a friend’ misconstrue something said,” stated Gracie, who believes that for now at least, people are more aware and wary of this than of what he calls pure censorship.
In the meantime, on its page dedicated to MKISIO’s commitment to free speech, the company explains that it permeates its “philosophy” and that the only reason MKISIO might act to curb those rights is a limited set of violations of the law – “and under no circumstances without having first receiving proper notice.”
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