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BlogTalkRadio
Alan Levy
- A link to the last show is at the
bottom of this article -
Debra J.M. Smith - 04/01/09
In an interview with FOX, Alan Levy, CEO of BlogTalkRadio
(BTR), made the online radio blog site sound upright and
business-like. It is no wonder why many people, including myself thought
the site would be a great place to be online.
However, it was
not long before things began to happen, like cult ads on my right wing
political Christian radio show. That was a bit of a conflict of interest
to me. At that time I struck a deal with the advertising department to
only run accuquote ads on my show pages and my own ads, which I
paid a month for.
Next
to happen was trouble with other hosts. People will befriend you and then stab you when
a clique requires them to do so. In this case it is a BTR
clique that staff members are not only aware of, but some are party to.
Before considering joining BTR, you may want to make note that
most hosts are all too proud to make a new host their topic of gossip. It
feeds their desire for attention and higher ratings.
I was a
bit shocked when my account was blocked because people who had
been trashing me on the site were upset that they could not see
archives of my shows that I was deleting. They wanted to see what I was
saying about the shows that they were trashing me on.
If
you think this sounds juvenile, that is exactly my point. A call
with the man who blocked me from my account, ended with
him saying I had done nothing wrong. You see, the delete button
is there for a reason.
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Some things came out on that phone call.
I learned that Alan Levy was in the red with his website
for the years that he had been in the business so far. Considering that I
had been blocked from my account while I had paid to advertise
on my show pages, this did not shock me.
I also learned that it
was not my imagination that BTR employees came into our shows to watch for
us to do something that the site did not like. Nor was
it my imagination that cult shows, such as divination shows, were allowed
in prime time, while Christian shows were not.
If Christians
had shows in prime time, we were not to talk too much about
Christianity. In my case, I could not talk at all on the topic. A show of
mine that was on state colleges treatment of Christians, was put to
private and marked "religious" because I dared to have it in prime
time.
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I did some
investigating and found on an employee's profile, a "Cult Vault"
video that had most of the BTR employees pictures flashing through it and
ended with a very nasty vulgar song: (YouTube removed the
video) --The creator of the video, Morgan,
had the job of judging our Christian shows. She is who actually put my
show to private that evening. Nothing like having a wolf watch over the
sheep.
The second time my account was blocked, was pretty much over
the same foolishness, only this time it involved an employee of the site.
The woman heads up the political areas on the website, Media Lizzy. It
turned out that many of the people having field days with my name,
were followers of hers. She holds the gavel for who does and who does not
get to have their names in a "Heading Right" area on the site. Now things
were beginning to add up here.
With all the trouble
that had come my way from so many "right" show hosts, I had thought that
her show would be a safe place to visit. Silly me. While in her show's
chat room, she accused me of the unforgivable sin of talking off topic,
which I wasn't doing. But it did not matter; she booted me
right out of there. It was minutes later that I was blocked from my
account the second time.
That time, the man who blocked me accused
me, among other things, of being a racist. That totally confused me, as
the show was on energy, and I was talking about the heat on blow driers. I
mean, seriously, how did he get "racist" out of that?
Well, we
fought it out over the phone again, and he finally admitted that he was
getting a load of hate emails about me. I honestly could not believe that
the site would do this because of gossip emails. I am a
right wing Christian activist; there are all kinds of lies on the net
about me.
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The
man, finally, once again admitted that I had done nothing wrong and let me
have access to my account. However, this time, he told me that he
wanted me to report the people who were trashing me on the site.
Personally, I am not into all of this kindergarten tattling. I
prefer a site that does not listen to gossip to begin with. I prefer a
site that is more mature than this, more business-like, a site more like
Alan Levy had described on that interview.
When I first began on
BTR, emails from BTR were signed, "Insuring your success." Really?
When would this begin?
The Troops
Shows:
I was not on BTR when the first troops
show took place, but I was there for the second and the 2008
Christmas troops show. It was amazing to think that hundreds of
troops were listening. Saturday Night Live's Victoria Jackson and
Singer Katie Banco were guests on the one. It was very exciting, very
moving. You can imagine the disappointment when it turned out that
the BTR user names, claiming to be the troops listening to the shows, were
fakes!
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Two hosts of the
Troops shows and I were all talking on my show the last night that I
was on BTR. We were talking about the bogus troop user names. It was
very sad to think that so many of us had been tricked by these
criminals. It is a crime to impersonate United States Military. It is
a federal crime, at that.
One would have thought that BTR
management would have been mortified to learn that a much-publicized event
had criminal behavior by some of their users. Well, if one thought such,
one would have been wrong. The next day, we three hosts were blocked from
our accounts.
The three of us were not given any reason for what
was done. We were sent cold emails, with no reason.
I sent an
email to BTR, letting them know exactly how I felt. Days later, I left a
phone message for Alan Levy, asking him if he even knew what was going on
with his own website.
A woman who claimed to be second in charge,
Amy Demestico returned my call. She claimed that the order to remove our
shows came from Alan. She said that there was a group of people
"harassing" Alan in emails, and that he told Media Lizzy to get rid of
them all. Problem was, we three were not part of those emails, and Amy
admitted that I was only copied on the emails that I never actually
received any of. She then claimed that one of the two Troops
Show hosts had threatened someone's life on my show. I sent her
proof, the clip from the show, a section showing that he did not
threaten anyone, but rather he was talking about those who threatened his
family.
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The
reason that Alan had us blocked from our accounts still remains a mistery.
I believe to this day that some of the staff had to have known that the
troops names were fakes all along and that we were just too close to
figuring out that they were in on it.
From what I know, many hosts
on BTR are freaking out at every turn, at the thought of being tossed off
of the site. I personally witnessed one woman on her own blog who had
lost her BTR account once already, curtail to one of the trouble makers
and compromise herself.
Trashy shows seem to do just fine on
BTR.
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The most annoying thing about having been on BTR, is
that the site still comes up on the first page if someone
googles my name. I was actually a key word while on BTR, so the BTR search
page keeps coming up on google, with my name. Yes, I had more hits on my
show than the man who blocked me from my account twice, most-likely
Media Lizzy too. You see that was the problem. Most of the people, who run
BTR, have shows on BTR; hence, we are their competition --a bit of a
conflict of interest.
Alan Levy's latest interview speaks of how
they end up high in the google ratings with users' names, as if
it is a good thing. Well, I will tell you, if the site turns out to do
you, as it has many of us Christians, you won't like that little
perk.
You also may not like having your account left in limbo. Yes,
that's right. I cannot get the site to actually close down my account. The
account is still there, but it is "disabled." Basically, you can
check out any time you like, but you can never really leave. --And
the website has no problem allowing members to post trash on who
the site blocked from using the site.
Alan Levy |
I have to wonder how Alan would have
felt if he had been treated so poorly on the blog site that he used
while his father was dying. He spoke of that blog on his first interview
and how important it was to him.
The one staff member that
talked to me on the phone told me employees had bought into the
company. Perhaps there lies the real problem; internal conflict problems
of how the site should be ran. How I wish I had known this before I wasted
seven months on the site, money on advertising for one of those
months, and risked my name that was and still is harmed by the
site.
Me Myself & I
Debra J.M. Smith
July 7,
2007 |
To hear that last show: Click Here
The show is just under
two hours long
and fully plays on Google Chrome and
Microsoft Edge best.
© Copyright 2009 Debra J.M. Smith
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