The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
Looking for E-Mail Distribution Service That Won't Limit What We Write
Google's FeedBurner, which we use to deliver the Volokh Daily e-mail to our ≈3,000 subscribers, is stopping its e-mail service. My plan was to move to Google Groups instead, and we still might if we can't get a good alternative, but I'm not wild about its content limits, including on whatever speech Google views as "Misleading content related to civic and democratic processes," "Misleading content related to harmful health practices," "hate speech," "bully[ing]," and more.
Naturally, I don't think our posts fit any such categories, and it's probably unlikely, at least today, that Google would think that they do. But I want us to make these decisions for ourselves, and have our users decide for themselves what they choose to read, rather than being subjected to the tender mercies of Big Tech. And while I haven't heard of Google enforcing its Google Groups content policies yet, a lot of tech companies have sharply stepped up their restrictions in recent years—the trend seems to be towards greater and greater exercise of control by such companies.
Can anyone recommend a convenient and reliable e-mail distribution service, with a built-in daily delivery option as well as post-by-post delivery (I expect all such services have them), but without these sorts of content limits? I'm basically looking for a service that views itself as akin to a phone company or UPS or FedEx or the post office—infrastructure with a hands-off attitude to content (setting aside outright illegal content, which they may have a legal obligation to block once they know about it).
I realize that the most blacklist-resistant alternative would be to run this on our own servers, and perhaps things have come to the point where we can't really trust any third parties on such matters. But I'm also looking for convenience and technical reliability, and appreciate the virtues of division of labor for promoting that. So if there is a good third-party service to which we can outsource the technical work, I'd like to use it. Please let me know if the comments if you have some recommendations.
UPDATE: Just to be clear, we'd be happy to use a for-pay service, assuming it's convenient, technically reliable, and trustworthy, though of course we aren't eager to pay more than necessary.
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