AKA William

Share

Yesterday I wrote that UniteTheFight’s Phillip Minton found that the free wi-fi at an LA Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf blocked non-porn LGBT sites like Pam’s House Blend and Towleroad for “sexuality,” although ex-gay sites like Exodus were not affected.

Minton hoped the issued had something to do with the company’s web-content filter rather than an anti-LGBT policy, and Minton was right.

Today, Towleroad posted a response from Tim Casey, Vice President of Marketing & Operations for International Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

“At approximately 3:00pm on Thursday we were notified by a customer using our complementary wi-fi service that two specific sites catering to the LGBT community were blocked from access. Those sites included Pam’s House Blend and Towleroad. After learning of the issue, our technical team researched the situation and took immediate steps to unblock the sites that were brought to our attention. It is not, and has never been, the policy of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to block Internet content or websites from our customers or members of the LGBT community. Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf subscribes to an OpenDNS platform that incorporates a peer review component which allows users to flag particular sites they deem inappropriate. In this case, a small amount of flags triggered the system and the sites in question were blocked automatically. No web-content filter is perfect, but we are grateful to the customers who quickly brought this to our attention for resolution. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf supports diversity on all levels and values the community members of the areas we operate in. Our goal in offering free wi-fi service is to open communication and exchange of information, not to block information.“

A problem came up, a complaint was registered, and the problem was fixed. Done and done. Happy ending for everyone!

One thing though — how does the flagging system work and why was it triggered?