Update / Change: Free Wifi at Lakeview Medical Center Blocks Democrats.org
Update 2025-12-17 15:44 - Since I hadn't checked the Virginia parties' websites, I went back. At first, vademocrats.org was blocked but when I tried to Google the Virginia Republicans' site, Google wouldn't load. I fiddled around a bit, Google loaded, I was able to pull up the Virginia Republicans' site but then -- I was able to pull up the Virginia Democrats' site. So I don't know what happened before. I'll check again some time and update.
Below is the original post
I was at Lakeview Medical Center in Suffolk, VA this morning and used their free wifi, bayview-guest, provided by the Bayview Physicians Group. This system controls network traffic with FortiGuard, a service provided Fortinet. Bayview's wifi blocks political organizations, and FortiGuard classifies bnmng.com as a political organization so I'm blocked there. I don't consider myself a political organization but I do post a lot of political stuff so I won't complain.
Bayview also blocks democrats.org, which makes sense, but they don't block gop.com or rnc.org. Why not? All three, democrats.org, gop.com, and rnc.org are listed as political organizations according to https://www.fortiguard.com/webfilter. That makes me think someone in charge of bayview-guest decided to add an exception for those Republican websites
I didn't check Virginia Democrats or Virginia Republicans - I was there for an appointment and I didn't spend my whole time researching this. But I was able to view sdcvirginia.org. That's not because anyone added an exception for the Suffolk Democrats - it's because FortiGuard mistakenly classified the Suffolk Dems' as a business.
So, I don't know all of the details but I do know that who ever is in charge of bayview-guest has it set to block political websites, and it seems that they added exceptions for Republican websites.
