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Nov
07
To Rojo.com - A Letter Of Disgust
Updated Post:- After sending the letter to rojo, I received an email from them. The message is at the very end of this article.
First to those who don’t know what Rojo is,
” Rojo means “RSS with mojo” and in this spirit our company is dedicated to providing the best feed reader around so that busy people can discover and read content as efficiently as possible. Rojo was selected “best of the Web” for blog reading by the editors of BusinessWeek. To try Rojo for yourself, visit www.rojo.com and create your account (it’s free!). Rojo is entirely web-based, you won’t need to download any software. ”
( source:-rojo.com/corporate/services/)
I am little scared to link to it since I don’t want to expose anybody to anything that I deem inappropriate.
Here is my letter to Rojo which explains why I am disgusted
“
DearRojo admin,
I was disgusted to see some of the content on your site today after I was pointed out by one of my readers that you had adult content. I have been using your services for a while and thought these kind of things weren’t allowed ( I was almost certain until now ).Just to make it clear for your unwatchful eyes the date was “11/23/07†when I witnessed an image of sexual conduct on your frontpage. Here is a excerpt from what was shown on the frontpage under the image
I brought home with hottie from the clubs. Girl was smoking hot, dark black skin and a banging body. the next morning i set up the camera to capture our morning ******* fest. Click here to see more videos of black hotties
I went and looked into your TOS and certainly you had clearly indicated the site isn’t for anyone under 18. Fine! As I scrolled further down I found this
As a condition to your use of this web site and the Service, you agree not to:
upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any information, materials or other content that is illegal, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, offensive, invades another’s privacy, or promotes bigotry, racism, hatred or harm against any individual or group; ( The post was obscene, racist, insulting, offensive, defamatory and pornographic to point out some )
Also I realize that it might be hard to track everything down for you guys but I bet there has to be a system setup to filter these things out.
I don’t know what you regard as obscene or pornographic but the content and image that was displayed on the date mentioned above was truly uncalled for and something that should be looked into ( And if you defer from the fact that the image wasn’t pornographic, you should probably get feedbacks from other users as well ). I am ashamed that Business Week awarded you “ best of the web “ for blog reading ( imagine my horror after reading such praise about you through such a reputable publication ).
I had listed your site on my blog for more readers to find out if they didn’t know about it since I thought it was a good service, but I was definitely wrong. If you will be serving these kind of images on your frontpage for whatever reason please make sure to change your TOS.
I am just glad I didn’t have my family with me while I was checking your site out cause that would certainly have made me look like somebody I am not. So next time you decide to let contents like that pass by please make sure to filter them and if not how about change your TOS so everyone knows what to expect.
Sincerely,
Nevermind
By the way, I have nothing against adult content. I, as everybody else live with the mantra ” don’t like it, don’t watch it ” but the TOS clearly states that it shouldn’t be allowed. And again there should be some kind of filtering to not to allow this from happening. If it was a service that promoted these kind of things, I wouldn’t have anything against it but it’s not.
Once again, this is my personal opinion and my thought as to why I am disgusted. Your thoughts and opinion are yours and I truly respect them.
Update:- Here is the email I received from rojo after writing them the letter,
Companies have to be able to control this. If they don’t many customers will drop their service. You have done them a favor by sending them this letter.
Rojo’s down at the moment. Most of its pages are throwing off 404 errors as I’m writing this.
Yeah, I saw this too. I emailed their feedback email address with a screen dump, and asked their support team to close my account.
I’ve had no response at all to either email.
I sent the exact same letter that is on this post and haven’t heard from them.
If the text and images were something that were returned for a search query I wouldn’t have a problem but it was right on the frontpage and I personally think that, for a social media site that popular that was very naive and extremely unwatchful for them.
I hope more people emailed them about the situation
Better that they hear about it from you rather promptly than one of their major advertisers later. If the sites down because the are ceaning house, so much the better. The racist and defamatory element would disgust or sadden anyone not bothered by the inappropriately adult material.
What freaks me out completely is the thought of linking to a site (I thought I knew well) out of a post on my blog and then have something like *that* be on the >front page< And right over a family holiday with grandparents and the little cousins in everyones’ living rooms. Horrifying! And, “How to Lose Record Number of Subscribers in One Day.”
I used to have Rojo, and would not have given it a second thought. Wow.
thanks!
Ritu,
The email you put together is very well researched and sets the proper tone. It’s refreshing to see someone actually take a firm stance against this type of action. You’ve just made a regular reader out of me. This is the type of blog that I want to associate myself with. You set a great example!