it just encourages them!
Apple public concern Ping!
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Posted on 07/16/2010 5:28:30 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand
Is there really such a thing as "freedom from porn?"
Maybe not completely. But Apple CEO Steve Jobs wants to make his iPhones and iPads as porn-free as possible—banning the use of apps containing pornography and "adult" images from the wildly popular devices. (Apps are free or inexpensive mini-programs that are downloaded into smartphones and, now, the iPad.)
Jobs' numerous critics jumped on the anti-porn policy, which was quietly started in February and picked up this spring with the iPad's release. They filled the blogosphere with cries of censorship and freedom of speech "violations." One e-mail critic even accused the computer giant of becoming "moral police."
The critics are out of line, and we applaud Jobs and Apple Inc. for their stand.
Said Jobs: "(We) believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone." Indeed, he even suggested that those who want to view pornography on their smartphones should purchase a competitor's model, where "you can download porn, your kids can download porn."
"That's a place we don't want to go," he said, "so we're not going to go there."
To be sure, the Internet remains a powerful and relatively untamed frontier where images and information—including Web sites dedicated to pornography and other objectionable matter—travel at lightening speed. Making it worse, the Internet offers it up anonymously, bringing it directly into one's home or one's phone.
That's why having such a major tech player as Apple hold up a stop sign, even one that's limited to the company's own apps, is such a welcome development. It raises awareness of a problem and it's a policy that could influence others down the road. Microsoft, in fact, has already announced that "pornography...or content that a reasonable person would consider to be adult or borderline adult content" will not be allowed in apps on the Windows Phone 7 to be released later this year.
Recently, opponents of pornography came together in Washington for a briefing that explored the increasing consequences of pornography in today's world. The audience included members of Congress and their staffs; speakers included anti-porn experts from the academic and psychological fields and a former pornography performer. The organizers' purpose was to educate members of Congress about the real-life consequences of pornography and to encourage them to fight for stronger enforcement of existing obscenity laws.
One of the speakers, from a group dedicated to making the Internet safer for children and families, gave examples of how easy it is for children to be exposed to pornography online, whether accidentally or intentionally, and said there's a need to cry out, "Enough is enough!"
In a way, that's what Steve Jobs and Apple are doing with their new policy, and what Microsoft plans as well. And it's more than just crying out. It's action, in an area where too little action has been taken.
In an exchange with a blogger who complained about Apple's anti-porn policy, Jobs wrote, "You might care more about porn when you have kids...It's not about freedom. It's about Apple trying to do the right thing for its users."
Indeed it is.
Youporn has a special section just for the iPad.
vox
As far as I’m concerned, porn is malware.
You make good points. Thanks for the info.
To tell you the truth, I have not followed him or his political connections, so all I could have told you about him was 1) he heads Apple, 2) he had a serious bout with a life-threatening illness a few years back, I think, and 3) he was at one time in business with Gates, I think. Unless the activities of celebrities get covered on FOX News, I am usually oblivious to their stances and stupid comments, e.g., I know now far more about Lindsey Lohan than I ever wanted to learn, and, until about 2 months ago I had never heard of her.
Not exactly.
From Wikipedia:
“In economics, the invisible hand, also known as the invisible hand of the market, is the term economists use to describe the self-regulating nature of the marketplace.[1] This is a metaphor first coined by the economist Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments. For Smith, the invisible hand was created by the conjunction of the forces of self-interest, competition, and supply and demand, which he noted as being capable of allocating resources in society.[2] This is the founding justification for the laissez-faire economic philosophy.[3]”
Good to see you, too, vox_freedom.
Getting crazy, isn’t it!
Hmm. That's progress. It's usually post 4.
Was (and is) Bill Gates’ main competitor, not business parter. Big Democrat crony and old hippie. Friend of Bill Clinton.
Isn’t this just related to apps for the iphone/pad. They are not blocking what you can view via your browser.
Look, the guy had the balls to stand up and say something right and about as popular as saying he was going to kill and eat puppies.
It's obvious that people who relish porn are warped past the point of seeing its (patently obvious) degenerative effect on individuals and, by extension, societies -- but, for the record, the story is that a captain of industry chose to acknowlege a moral reality. That, in itself, is freaking earthshaking.
yeah. and man with a backbone enough to say no to porn. I don't care who he votes for.
Oh, and, Bill Gates bought a big chunk of Apple a few years back. They cooperate on OS and application compatibility -- Mac OS not only supports Windows apps it supports Windows.
Just for clarification, Microsoft was forced to buy stock as part of a legal settlement. They later sold it for a healthy profit. I’m not sure of Gates’ personal portfolio.
Well said.
Don't recall any legal compulsion being used, however, that doesn't mean it wasn't. Do recall that Apple was on the ropes financially, the stock was at a low (I seem to recall the number 12, but can't certify), and there was hushed talk about "bankruptcy" in the equities community, of which I was somewhat involved.
Also, I learned that
It was also announced that Internet Explorer would be shipped as the default browser on the Macintosh....which makes me curious what sort of legal settlement in which MSFT would be forced to pay damages would result in such an arrangement as this.
Here's an excerpt from a contemporary account, which I recommend to anyone whose curious:
So what happened? Why did Steve Jobs, who has spent his adult life making fun of Microsoft, suddenly make a pact with the devil? Why did he agree to let Microsoft share all of Apple's software secrets?This is certainly more in keeping with what I recall the buzz to be at the time it occured.The inside story seems to go this way:
Apple's stock had been falling steadily over the years. Despite occasional surges, the stock kept sliding down. Apple was losing the confidence of investors. This was very bad news, because it meant Apple would have a hard time getting backing from Wall Street. Layoffs and cost cutting could only go so far.
Worse yet, a group of investors -- so far unidentified -- was waiting for Apple's stock to fall even farther. According to a story I heard, if Apple's stock price hit another new low, these investors would quickly buy up the company. And who knows what would happen then?
So Steve Jobs turned to Bill Gates, the $36 billion man. Gates is probably the only man in America who would be able to send a lot of cash to Apple without trying to buy the company. Although Bill Gates would love to own Apple Computer, the U.S. Justice Department would quickly challenge any Microsoft takeover of Apple. Microsoft is already too big to go unnoticed by the trustbusters in Washington, and a buyout of Apple would put Microsoft in court for years.
According to my reports, Jobs asked Gates to pledge $150 million in purchases of Apple stock. Gates agreed, but only after getting the deal on sharing trade secrets and the agreement that Apple would promote the Microsoft Web browser.
The $150 million in pledges -- it's not known yet how much Microsoft has actually spent so far -- gave Apple stock a sudden boost, from a low of $13.68 a share in early July to a high of $26.31 a share Wednesday afternoon. On that day alone, the stock shot up more than $6 a share.
I am far from the resident expert on this, Swordmaker can fill you in much better, however:
My understanding is that MS was caught redhanded using Quicktime code. They were sued for doing so by Apple who had a billion in the bank at the time. The settlement they reached before trial is what Wikipedia lists, Apple ships IE on Macs, MS continues to make Office for Mac for 5 years and buys 150 million worth of non-voting stock.
At the time, Apple didn’t have Safari and there wasn’t a lot of options in the browser world. Having to ship with IE wasn’t exactly a huge concession. Having to continue making a key productivity suite on the other hand, was.
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No, this is the difference between selling high def video cameras, blank DVD disks, lights, sound recording equipment, video recorders, editing software, video projectors, and screens, all tools capable of being used to produce and show pornographic movies, and actually selling pornographic movies in your camera store.
Just because every woman has the equipment to be a prostitute, does not mean she has to participate in that business. In this case, Apple chooses NOT to be a sales source of pornographic software or material. They could care less, however, if their customers use their products to seek out such products, or even use them to produce pornography. They just choose not to sell that category of product.
Excellent post, Swordmaker. Thank you.
Uh, no. Microsoft bought $150,000,000 of Apple restricted preferred stock (non-voting) as part of a lawsuit settlement in 1997—having to do software patent infringements when Apple's Quicktime code was found in MS Windows Media Viewer—which Microsoft essentially lost. MS also agreed to license from Apple for an undisclosed yearly license fee certain patents and copyrights for five years, continue developing and marketing MS Office for Mac for five years, AND license certain patents and copyrights TO Apple at no cost for the life of those copyrights and patents.
For its part of the agreement, Apple agreed to dismiss the lawsuit, license the intellectual property both ways, and include MS Internet Explorer along with Netscape Navigator as an included browser with every new Mac sold for five years. The lopsided terms of this agreement show who blinked first. . . and who really won the lawsuit, even though the agreements were sealed for a number of years. The three interlocking agreements submitted to the court are now unsealed and available on the Internet.
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