5 ms·

It is, for the first time in history, a garden of pure ideology.

pohl 16y ago
Not really. I'm pretty sure Disney keeps their theme parks as porn-free as they can. I bet Target, Walmart, and Toys-R-Us do a pretty good job of keeping their stores porn-free. The App Store isn't doing anything that brick-and-mortar businesses haven't been doing for a long time.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  It's squashing our hopes that in this brave new world of the global internet things could be different than they have been.
  - pohl 16y ago
    "Different than they have been"... ...so y'all have hopes of disposing of the status quo of being able to take your daughter shopping without having to explain to her why those three men in the picture were filling all holes on that nice lady? Speaking as someone who has no issue with porn, and who has shamelessly rubbed a few out to some in my day, I've got to say that being able to point mobile Safari anywhere I want to, and to sync pictures and movies if I'm so inclined, is sufficient for me. Not having porn in the App Store is no more a blow against high hopes for the internet than is not having porn at overstock.com.
    - CodeMage 16y ago
      Thank goodness rbanffy wasn't sarcastic or anything ;)
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      It's not like that. Unless you actively seek porn, you won't find it, be it in the web, be it in mobile applications for platforms other than Apple's. The right analogy is your daughter being unable to find porn when she actively and deliberately seeks and want it because some authority deemed it immoral and banned its production. This is not what I expected from Apple and not what I want for the future.
      - pohl 16y ago
        Even if you buy the claim that there is no keyword overlap between porn & non-porn queries (which I don't) and that porn purveyors don't love to spam keyword space (which I don't) you still have to consider this: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_top_100_search_terms_queried_by_kids.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_top_100_search_term... ...and that if a parent busts their child searching for it and finding it, the puritan parent is as likely to go after the store as they are to deal with their child. Allowing porn apps into the store is a messy business proposition. I'm only surprised it didn't get shot down sooner. Not expecting the same policy from any brand of their magnitude is naïve. And, I have to say, desiring to have porn distributed as executable code is a crazy thing to wish for. I wouldn't even trust it in a sandbox. No industry abuses APIs more than those guys.
        rbanffy 16y ago
        > the puritan parent is as likely to go after the store as they are to deal with their child. And that is one of the dangerous slopes we can see. It's not the store owner's responsibility to educate the kid - that's what parents are for. And the puritan parent has no right to prevent my kids from getting what I allow them to get. And it's not only about porn. Apple must clearly draw the line it will not cross. Today it's porn, emulators and anything that's cross-compiled. A cartoonist was blocked already (and unblocked after that). Would a network anonymizer be allowed? For how long?
        pohl 16y ago
        Ok, think of it this way: imagine that you're pitching the idea of allowing porn apps into the App Store. How do you convince the board of directors that porn should be associated with the brand? You'll have to do better than slippery slope alarmism. So what do you say to make your business case?
        rbanffy 16y ago
        The only reason they would be associated with porn now is that they took a stance against porn in the first place. Of all apps, only a small fraction of them would end up being porn - present approval process could still happen. Adult content would also be segregated into an adult store - with separate authorization processes so if puritan parents decide to make it difficult for their offspring to get porn, difficult it would be. And, most of all, this is not about porn - it's about the notion of a walled garden as being desirable. It's, like someone mentioned, that garden of pure ideology. Jobs, now, is the Big Brother on the screen. It's up to us to wield the hammers.

pohl 16y ago

Not really. I'm pretty sure Disney keeps their theme parks as porn-free as they can. I bet Target, Walmart, and Toys-R-Us do a pretty good job of keeping their stores porn-free. The App Store isn't doing anything that brick-and-mortar businesses haven't been doing for a long time.

rbanffy 16y ago
It's squashing our hopes that in this brave new world of the global internet things could be different than they have been.
- pohl 16y ago
  "Different than they have been"... ...so y'all have hopes of disposing of the status quo of being able to take your daughter shopping without having to explain to her why those three men in the picture were filling all holes on that nice lady? Speaking as someone who has no issue with porn, and who has shamelessly rubbed a few out to some in my day, I've got to say that being able to point mobile Safari anywhere I want to, and to sync pictures and movies if I'm so inclined, is sufficient for me. Not having porn in the App Store is no more a blow against high hopes for the internet than is not having porn at overstock.com.
  - CodeMage 16y ago
    Thank goodness rbanffy wasn't sarcastic or anything ;)
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    It's not like that. Unless you actively seek porn, you won't find it, be it in the web, be it in mobile applications for platforms other than Apple's. The right analogy is your daughter being unable to find porn when she actively and deliberately seeks and want it because some authority deemed it immoral and banned its production. This is not what I expected from Apple and not what I want for the future.
    - pohl 16y ago
      Even if you buy the claim that there is no keyword overlap between porn & non-porn queries (which I don't) and that porn purveyors don't love to spam keyword space (which I don't) you still have to consider this: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_top_100_search_terms_queried_by_kids.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_top_100_search_term... ...and that if a parent busts their child searching for it and finding it, the puritan parent is as likely to go after the store as they are to deal with their child. Allowing porn apps into the store is a messy business proposition. I'm only surprised it didn't get shot down sooner. Not expecting the same policy from any brand of their magnitude is naïve. And, I have to say, desiring to have porn distributed as executable code is a crazy thing to wish for. I wouldn't even trust it in a sandbox. No industry abuses APIs more than those guys.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        > the puritan parent is as likely to go after the store as they are to deal with their child. And that is one of the dangerous slopes we can see. It's not the store owner's responsibility to educate the kid - that's what parents are for. And the puritan parent has no right to prevent my kids from getting what I allow them to get. And it's not only about porn. Apple must clearly draw the line it will not cross. Today it's porn, emulators and anything that's cross-compiled. A cartoonist was blocked already (and unblocked after that). Would a network anonymizer be allowed? For how long?
        pohl 16y ago
        Ok, think of it this way: imagine that you're pitching the idea of allowing porn apps into the App Store. How do you convince the board of directors that porn should be associated with the brand? You'll have to do better than slippery slope alarmism. So what do you say to make your business case?
        rbanffy 16y ago
        The only reason they would be associated with porn now is that they took a stance against porn in the first place. Of all apps, only a small fraction of them would end up being porn - present approval process could still happen. Adult content would also be segregated into an adult store - with separate authorization processes so if puritan parents decide to make it difficult for their offspring to get porn, difficult it would be. And, most of all, this is not about porn - it's about the notion of a walled garden as being desirable. It's, like someone mentioned, that garden of pure ideology. Jobs, now, is the Big Brother on the screen. It's up to us to wield the hammers.