Alexandra Bruce – As some of you may have noticed, I was de-platformed by my mass-email service provider, MailChimp a week ago last Tuesday. MailChimp froze my account after I tried to send you a newsletter about this new video by an engineer who builds Manhattan skyscrapers. Stunning that this would cause MailChimp to throw me out on the street.

With the sheer volume of de-platformings and strikes affecting thousands of creators across dozens of platforms, I half expected something like this to happen. Still, nothing quite prepares you for the incredible sense of powerlessness from what amounts to being fired from your own sole proprietorship, especially when you’ve done nothing wrong.

And nothing casts an air of contagion around you, when you’re looking for a new provider quite like having been de-platformed. Some providers did not want my business, not because they thought I was a criminal spammer but because my politics are not 100% the same as Google’s and CNN’s. This is why it took so long to find a replacement for MailChimp. Continue reading →