Why I Left Verizon Wireless

A couple months ago my wife brought an article to my attention that really bothered her. She showed me an article at Fight The New Drug. It was an article about the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s annual Dirty Dozen List. This is a list of companies that profit from sexual exploitation and then it provides action items that you can take to make a change. The 2015 list had come out and there was a decision we needed to make.

Verizon, the umbrella company that Verizon Wireless is under (which I’ve been patron of since ~2002) was on the list. The list states that, 

“Verizon profits from sexual exploitation by pushing porn into homes through multiple ways, including pay-per-view movies on their FIOS TV, as an Internet service provider, and as a wireless carrier. They have even defended child-themed, incest-themed, and trafficking-themed pornography as a benefit to their consumers. It’s time Verizon had a change in policy.” 

As if the fact that they provide these options isn’t enough, their attempt at defending their choice to continue provide them is disgusting and really compelled us to leave.

So, as of February 16^th, we are no longer Verizon Wireless customers. Now, it is almost impossible to not take part in some exchange of goods with only companies that do not on their part contribute to something we disagree with morally. If you look at a pro-life boycott list pretty much everybody is on it. And honestly, we’re probably so far from the source of the evil of providing pornographic material that we are minimally culpable if at all culpable. But, the defense that Verizon took in trying to justify their actions was too much to look past.

Our choice in phone companies is not a fixed situation. And though we are only taking part in what they do in a materially cooperative fashion (thanks ethics class), we find that their choice to formally take part and offer options for millions of others to take part in this evil a motive to leave. We decided that this was worth having to pay our cancellation fee. We could not wait until my contract was up. And actually, in the long run, we are now saving money.

Now, there are other companies, like Facebook, that we use on the list, but these companies actually have policies in place to ward off pornographic abuses. We need to do our part to get them to implement them better.

With good conscience we could not stay with Verizon Wireless knowing what we were supporting in however small a way.

At what point do we get tired enough to start speaking out and taking action against the evil that trickles through our daily lives and attempts to desensitize us. To paraphrase a statement Matt Fradd made at a talk I witnessed last night, “The hardcore porn we used to watch is now boring. Soft-core porn we now call Game of Thrones.”  

If I claim to be a faithful Catholic with a well formed conscience I had to act. Thomas More explains why beautifully, “When a man takes an oath, Meg, he's holding his own self in his own hands. Like water. And if he opens his fingers then-he needn't hope to find himself again. Some men aren't capable of this, but I'd be loathe to think your father one of them.” - A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More

Check out the 2015 Dirty Dozen List and see what action you can take: 2015 Dirty Dozen List

Verizon's Defense Statement