Steve Jobs offers world "freedom from porn"

[dmaul1114]

http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05...l-feud/?hpt=T2

http://gawker.com/5539717/

Interesting little back and forth e-mail battle he had with a random blogger complaining about the iPad's closed nature, lack of flash etc.[



Full exchange at the 2nd link above.

I find that type of attitude very troubling. It's Apple's (and their buy largely his) device, and they can do what they want with it.

But when it gets into wanting to block owners access to certain things for moral reasons, that's something I could never support.

It's one thing to have a feud with a company and want to keep software off it for performance reasons etc. But it's going way to far to want to block whole categories of content for moral reasons.

Could backfire as well as Porn played a big role in VHS vs. betamax, DVD vs Divx, Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD etc.

Access to porn with little virus risk is one of the positives that could draw people to the iPad vs. say future Windows based tablets.


To relate this to the topic of reading on the iPad--it's a slippery slope. What's to stop them from blocking erotica or novels with strong sexual elements etc? Probably can't block them from 3rd party apps, but from iBooks they could.

[Bilbo1967]

Or books with political messages that Steve doesn't agree with, or books that portray any Apple competitors in a positive light, etc, etc...

It's a slippery slope alright.

Cue the fanboys with their pathetic "Steve's right because" arguments......

[omk3]

The man wants to free us from the burden of our money and of the burden of choice. I think it's all very commendable. What are we complaining about?

[scottjl]

well. he may not allow porn apps, but you can surf wherever you want, download whatever books you want and load up your own movies. so all you horny old goats out there shouldn't have much to worry about.

[dmaul1114]

Those are all true, but so many porn sites use flash video, and from that statement it sounds like that's may well be one of Job's reasons reasons for wanting to keep Flash off the iPad and iPhone.

And it's not much of a further step for them to eventually start pushing filtering software on the iPad Safari browser etc. to try to block porn sites.

I doubt that would happen--but you never know with Jobs and those comments are really bothersome on that front.

I have little problem with them keeping porn apps out of their store, but if it goes further than that I have major issues a company should have no control over the content a person who owns their device can choose to view on it. They don't have to sell the content, but they shouldn't do anything to limit consumers access to it from other sources.

[Tamara]

Why wouldn't you want filtering software on Safari especially if you have a child that uses an iPad?

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by omk3

The man wants to free us from the burden of our money and of the burden of choice. I think it's all very commendable. What are we complaining about?

Sounds like the deal for being a peasant....

[dmaul1114]

Originally Posted by Tamara

Why wouldn't you want filtering software on Safari especially if you have a child that uses an iPad?

I meant total blocking of certain sites in the browser software by Apple, rather than just a filter system that users can enable.

Of course I'm fine with optional, user controlled filtering. And again, I said such total blocking was unlikely to happen....

They key is everything should be up to the user. They can control what apps they put in their store---as it is their store, but they should have no control over what users put on their iPad from other sources once they buy it.

Right now that's the case, though it sounds like wanting to limit porn access may be at least a small part of the reason to block Flash from that e-mail exchange.

In any case, it's a slippery slope to be making those kind of comments, and certainly rubs me the wrong way and further reduces the chances that I ever get an iPad or another Apple product period--at least while Jobs is at the helm and making such statements.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

Those are all true, but so many porn sites use flash video, and from that statement it sounds like that's may well be one of Job's reasons reasons for wanting to keep Flash off the iPad and iPhone....

Yep, the "porn" thing is Jobs' justification why he doesn't want to allow Flash (and presumably Java) and Adobe's cross-compiler.

The idea is, that if you had the choice of getting applications from sources other than the Apple's App Store, you may be seduced by sinful applications.

So, we should be grateful for the Great Leader, who watches over us. (Of course, the real reason is that He doesn't want to allow competition).

This is all part of a larger pattern, mind you. A while back Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from the Apple Stores, because the publisher dared to publish an unauthorized biography of the Moral One.

From The New York Times:

"... In an image-obsessed fit of pique, Apple Computer banished books published by John Wiley & Sons from the shelves of Apple's 105 retail stores recently because of Wiley's plan to publish an unauthorized biography of Jobs, the Apple chief executive.... "iCon: Steve Jobs, The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business," by Jeffrey Young and William Simon, which will go on sale this month.

...
...the retaliation is hitting other authors who have never run afoul of Jobs. In the past few days, some two dozen popular technical titles, including "Dr. Mac: The OS X Files," "Garageband for Dummies" and "Macs for Dummies," by David Pogue, a columnist for The New York Times, were removed from Apple store bookshelves and returned to Wiley's distribution center in New Jersey...."

[dmaul1114]

Add in the app by the political cartoonist that got rejected after bashing apple/jobs, then approved once the author won a Pulitzer.

So, yeah, this kind of control over content is just a very slippery slope. It's a bunch of little stuff so far mostly, but I don't like the attitude or precedent at all.

[nikkie]

Steven clearly prefers monarchy over democracy. And he wants to be king!

"I say you shouldn't watch porn, have flash, or add music to your device through any software but iTunes, and that's just the way it is!"

[scottjl]

it should be noted that steve jobs doesn't always answer these emails himself, it is well known it is sometimes one of his underlings. personally, i doubt he'd get into a pissing match with some unknown person knowing well it will end up on the intertubes. he is too worried about his appearance in the media to go off on a rant like this and us usual responses are only a few words at best. i would strongly suspect it was someone under him who is probably now looking for a job (or gone missing). but we'll never know for sure.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by scottjl

it should be noted that steve jobs doesn't always answer these emails himself, it is well known it is sometimes one of his underlings.

Yeah sure - the typical Apple fanboy answer.

It's his official email address.

[scottjl]

yeah, and he reads every little email that is sent to him.. maybe you bashers should be sending him notes instead of posting here. lol. if you really think the ceo of a billion dollar company reads every email that comes his way, and that his personal email address is as simple as that for anyone to drop a note to i got some swampland to sell you.

amazing that can't have a thread on here without attracting the trolls who just have to lay in with personal attacks..

[dmaul1114]

Definitely no need for the personal attacks.

There's for sure no way to know if he answered himself. But I'd assume only he sends e-mails from his official account though--why would a CEO let a lackey send out e-mails in his name?

That's just asking for trouble. It's more likely a case that he just happened to read the e-mail from this blogger for whatever reason--random, new the guy's name etc. and shot off a response in the heat of the moment.

No way to know for sure, but again, I'd be shocked if a CEO was letting a lacky access and send e-mails from their personal account. Especially one so focused on control as Jobs.