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How can I help you have an even better AOL
experience?
Debra J.M. Smith
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this
world, against spiritual wickedness in high
places” (Ephesians
6:12).
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While
reading suspense literature, a reader often finds
himself on the edge of his seat, reading glasses halfway
down his nose and biting the tip of his thumb. Hang in
there, I promise you: there is an answer to this
question that undoubtedly haunts many a current AOL
member.
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Valued
Member
AOL
is notorious for catchy little phrases to make its
members feel special, loved, adored, yadda yadda. There
was the one that went, "How can I help you have an even
better AOL experience?" Gosh, that really sounded so
thoughtful, till the same line came out of employee,
after employee, after employee, in a rather robotic sort
of way. Somehow it lost its feel. After AOL dropped that
phrase, probably due to the endless possible
suggestions, they incorporated yet
another.
I cannot begin to tell you how
special I felt the day they told me that my account had
me listed as a "Valued Member!" Seriously, I marched
myself right into that Beliefs Christian chat room where
I had been persecuted for years over my right-wing born
again Christian belief posts. Without hesitation, I told
them all of my new AOL member status; periodically they
needed to be
reminded. |
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Quite an
experience
While I
was enjoying my valued member status, I was slandered,
stalked, and harassed by people who made me their reason
for waking in the morning. As they did their thing, AOL
placed violation after violation on my valued member
account, even for scripture postings. I received so many
bogus violations that after a while I came to expect to
hear "Good-bye" upon signing on to AOL. I learned to
keep my speakers turned down—it lessened the pain. My
account inadvertently was terminated twice. While I did
accept it back the first time, the second time, I
declined.
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How's this
for wholesome
entertainment?
AOL
began as a family server, and to this day boasts of
caring so much about your and my children. So many
parents all across America trust AOL as their
babysitter. After all, AOL has child protection for
emails, parent controls for contents to be viewed, and
let's not forget the really cute children
desktops.
With
AOL coming off as such a family-oriented server, it is
not hard for parents to trust AOL with their older
teenagers, letting up on the reins and lifting off the
parent controls. But I believe AOL is not to be trusted
with our children.
Over my five years of being
on AOL, I witnessed many teenagers in that Christian
chat room. They were looking to talk to Christians about
life and often looking for Christian adult guidance. I
became concerned as, one by one; homosexual activists
began parking themselves in that chat room, often
claiming to be Christian and openly promoting their
behaviors. Along with some others, I tried my best to
speak Biblical truths on the topic.
Such sadness came
over me the day I noticed a new category of AOL chats, a
whole category devoted to these sexually sinful people.
Under this new category, there were
terrible perversions listed by type. Because AOL
created these chats, the rooms would be easily seen and
easily accessible to teens, just as easy to reach as
Christian chats. Within no time, AOL began to run ads to
promote these chat rooms. Where? In other AOL created
chat rooms, including Christian
chat
rooms. |
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The first to
go
It got
to the point where we outspoken Christians were being
accused of harassing, slandering, and even stalking
the the homosexuals, who clearly became confused
and took a wrong turn into the Christian chat and could
never find their way back out again. Yes, you read that
correctly: people who were clearly against true
Christian values came into a Beliefs Christian topic
chat room and then cried that we were harassing,
slandering, and stalking them. They
ended up forming a group designed to, one by one, rid
AOL of such Christians as us. I was first on the hit
list for being so vocal. Now, please don't get me wrong,
I am totally honored that they saw me, this small-town
born again Christian home-school mommy, as the biggest
threat to modern day perverts. It truly confirmed that
my message was piercing a liberal nerve or two, that
they would deem me to be "The first to go."
They
created an online blog site, devoted especially to me,
where there were instructions to report me to AOL via
the chat room notification button, continually. There
were comment sections for patrollers to report sightings
of me, screen names thought to be mine, even chat logs
of my every word. (Made up ones were more than
welcomed.) I have to admit this did cause me to do some
rather odd things, like wearing my sunglasses at night
and striking sudden poses, just in case the paparazzi
were lurking about.
In all seriousness, this was
crazy! But what was far crazier was that an AOL
Supervisor was being implicated on this blog site as
helping this group to get rid of
me. |
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A
top internet server?
On March 15, 2006, my
account was terminated for the second time. I recall
asking one employee what happened to my "Valued member"
status. He said that he could see it on my account
notes, right before it was terminated that day. Ahem.
Oh, wait, this gets even better; it really
does. |
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Prior to the demise of
my valued member account, I had received two more
wrongly placed violations, which prompted me to call AOL
on both occasions. Each time, AOL said they were sorry
for the inconvenience they had caused me. As per
protocol, letters were generated thanking me for my
continued membership. The letters were dated March 13th
and March 15th. Yes, the second one was mailed out on
the same day that AOL deemed me not worthy of their
server any more. Do we see a pattern here? Do we see a
pattern of a company that does not know what they are
doing? This would be laughable if not for that some
members could be severely hurt by a sudden loss of an
account. And most people would not know how to work the
maze-system in place to get an account reactivated.
Note that it can take several calls to AOL
to get through to an employee who communicates well. I
speak only English, and it really is advantageous for me
to speak with someone who speaks fluent English. It may
be "America Online," but it is often "India on the
Phone." Call me crazy, but I think it is a must for a
company to provide American customers with fluent
English speaking customer-care specialists. One AOL
Community Action Team employee, from whom I sought
answers pertaining to the termination, as the call was
ending, said in a very thick Indian accent,
"Just for calling in today,
you are eligible to receive a free computer lesson on
AOL." I could hardly contain myself, I am sure you can
imagine the dilemma I was faced with. I felt that "Say
what?" look come over my face, as I opened my mouth and
out came a rather screeching high pitched: "I don't have
AOL anymore!"
I also believe that it is important
to have care specialists who understand American culture
when they are in a position to judge what Americans do
and say online. And, am I alone here, or does anyone
else wonder how AOL could be so irresponsible as to have
Hindus judging Christians' entries in a Christian forum?
This is not to mention the many other anti-Christian
employees I encountered. I will never forget the Wiccan
employee who tried to convince me that Wicca
(witchcraft) is all about love and doing good. Where
is a bucket of water, when ya need
one?
With phone call after phone call
came instructions to call here and call there--each
department said to talk to another
department. It got to the point where it became
circular. Bits and pieces of the puzzle came only with
hard work and pressing on. It turned out that the
supervisor implicated on that blog was, in fact, the one
who shut me down. But AOL assured me it was a
coincidence. They said the reason my account had been
closed was a system error caused by the massive
reporting by other members, and that the order to shut
down my account had actually been given to that
supervisor from some back room where Oz hangs out. And
of course no one can reach him by phone!
Another supervisor said I would be reinstated in 48
hours, that he would not be happy till I was back on
AOL. However, I had seen enough, heard enough, been
treated badly enough by AOL, so that I did not want
anything further to do with them.
Weeks after my
account was closed, an online friend became alerted to
strange activity with her AOL account, which prompted
her to call AOL. I was on three-way with her for her
round of calls. It turned out that the same supervisor
who closed my account was now into hers. He had been
into her billing info, and apparently he put some
top-secret note on her account that could only be told
to us with a court order. I'm not kidding. We also
learned more about this man's activities on my account,
that his name was actually all over my
account, not just a final name stamped on it by orders
of some mysterious and unreachable back-room
character.
I had more than given this man the
benefit of the doubt; at one point I had even defended
the man, saying that the same people who lie about me
could have easily lied about him. One copy of my US
letter, declining the offer to re-open my account, was
addressed to this very man.
Full internet
server
supplier
Along with supplying perverted chat
rooms to any member with a working password, AOL has
countless member profiles with links that go directly to
online
porn. The ads for the profiles go through AOL
chat rooms. AOL does not let this little perk be known
in their television ads.
AOL claims that it is
not possible to block porn from being advertised in
their chat rooms. Funny, some other servers have no
problem blocking it. Maybe if AOL spent less time
plotting to rid the airways of born again Christian
mommies, they would have more time to brainstorm ideas
to snuff out those porn
ads.
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Not all was a
loss
I learned a lot while on AOL. I had
an inside view of these lost souls' agenda on
America. I know just how they are planning to run down
the morality of this great nation. They are not after
getting those who oppose their vile affections, to look
the other way and pretend all is normal in the "Johnny
has two daddies" household. The "Get out of their
bedroom" plea that they throw up at us conservative
types is the furthest thing from what they want. They
want us to know, beyond a doubt, what is done in those
bedrooms. They want into the rest of society's minds and
the minds of our children, to get us to see what
they do as normal, just another way of
life. They want to infiltrate it all into the
public eye, so much that it gets to the point where the
sodomite's bed is seen as blessed by God, hence church
weddings. The ploy of their agenda is not to get people
to overlook what is done, but to accept it and embrace
it, and they want to silence those who refuse to comply.
They want our government to make it illegal to use
anything as a moral measuring tool, by which to measure
right from wrong in the USA, making it so that any such
measuring tool would be considered religion-based. They
have been and still are working
hard to change the meaning of what our founding fathers
meant by the 1st amendment--not just to stop the church
from telling the state what is right or wrong, but for the state to
be able to legally tell the church what is right and
wrong: this is exactly what our founding fathers
sought to prevent by the 1st
amendment!
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What
else?
I saw firsthand in that chat room
the manipulative snares used on those who would not
comply with the the cause. There was the
divide-and-conquer technique of coming between people of
different races, ages, sizes, income classes, and faith
beliefs. For example, knowing that I am a
nondenominational Christian, and that my teachings go
against the Catholic Church teachings, I was often
painted as a hater of Catholics. (I have close friends
and family who are Catholic. Lies are the key to the
success of the cause.) Another way they
would entice people into the cause was to falsely accuse
them of doing something hateful, causing the defender to
bend over backwards to prove their innocence, at which
time the person who started the rumor graciously
put forth the offer of forgiveness and friendship. The
snare that seemed to be enjoyed the most was to verbally
abuse people for past sins or present struggles with
sin, and then turn around and offer the victim an
understanding ear. Making examples of some who oppose
the cause, by openly slandering them or mocking their
families, often made others submit for fear that they
would be next. The one I saw, which worked the
best—gaining the strongest of supporters, was to stroke
the egos of people who sapped that type of manipulation
right
up.
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The only
solution
My stay on AOL
gave me constant confirmation of God's instructions on
handling the wicked. We believers should never respond
to a fool in his folly no matter what lies, slander, or
other offenses he throws at us. (I highly recommend all
true believers read and study Psalm 37.)
We need
to be wise as serpents and gentle as lambs—two things
that my Italian, over-passionate spirit often causes me
to fall far short in. We should remember that the enemy
is as a roaring lion, seeking whom he can devour.
Finally, we must pray for God to cause America to turn
back to Him, we have left our first love. Scripture says
that if God's people turn to Him, He will heal their
land. “The grounded Eagle needs to soar
again.”
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The answer to the
question
I am a mother of two daughters, a wife of
many years, and a small in-home business owner who
also writes, sings, and dreams big. I like to make the
best of my time. I now use my MSN account, as my
main account; and as you can see from this article, they
have great clip-art. MSN also is not over-ran by filth.
I made the right choice to be done with my AOL account.
So, what was the final straw that made me say "no" to
that one AOL supervisor's offer to reinstate my
account? Before I was offered my account back, one quite
embarrassed employee said to me that there was a note on
my account to tell me to "Find a new internet server."
-----Finally! The answer to that ever-haunting
question.
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©
Copyright 2006 Debra J.M. Smith --April
19, 2006
The Grounded Eagle Needs to Soar
Again.
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