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That's so American. Ban every nipple and every inch of other "prohibited" body parts. At the same time in Europe you go to a nude beach and there are whole fam

That's so American. Ban every nipple and every inch of other "prohibited" body parts. At the same time in Europe you go to a nude beach and there are whole families with kids and literally nobody has problems with it. Clothing is optional. No one bothers nude people, no one bothers clothed ones. In Germany or Sweden you can get your [banned by Apple] out in a public place not designated for nudity per se and this just normal. But yeah, lets ban more normal/natural stuff.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Children sharing nude photos of themselves, or being sent unsolicited nudes, is not normal / natural. As an adult you can just turn this feature off, if you use messages for this kind of thing.
- adrianN 4y ago
  Children taking photos is not natural.
  - Hackbraten 4y ago
    Taking photos is not natural.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ilikehurdles 4y ago
  Photos are not natural. From that basic fact you can extend any activity surrounding them to be unnatural. Kids seeing themselves or each other nude is pretty normal. Kids are curious. That being said, luckily none of the awkward curiosities we entertained when I was a kid had any chance of ending up on some kind of iCloud permanent record, so maybe this is for the better.
vletal 4y ago
It does not ban anything, it provides opt-in warnings to protect kids from obtaining or sending nudes.
- petre 4y ago
sschueller 4y ago
- cato_the_elder 4y ago
  Different countries have different cultures. That seems alright to me.
  - tommit 4y ago
    Yes, obviously that's alright. It's nonetheless also alright to wonder about or even question the reason behind those different cultures. As a European, it's just really, really strange to see how everything war, gore, death and guns seems to be alright for the kids overseas, but don't you dare show a nipple or say a bad word. I respect your culture, even like lots about it. But sorry, that's weird.
    - cato_the_elder 4y ago
      Right, but there seems to be a strange belief that the US in particular shouldn't have its own culture. My objection is to that. That's kinda American exceptionalism at its worst. Europeans have their own share if strange cultural phenomenon, BTW. E.g. apparently they don't feed their guests in Sweden. [1] [1]: https://nypost.com/2022/05/31/countries-where-feeding-house-guests-is-not-the-cultural-norm/ https://nypost.com/2022/05/31/countries-where-feeding-house-...
      - tommit 4y ago
        I don't think anyone feels like the US shouldn't have its own culture -- definitely not more so than other places. If anything, the US injects its culture everywhere, due to entertainment being a primary export. And most of it is completely fine. People may shake their heads at certain things, much like you guys shake your head at the thought of not feeding your guests. But that's fine. It's just that (sorry for using such a provocative word) the entire war/gun-fetishism is weird af for most outsiders. The way I see it, it's at least equal parts culture and excessive lobbying/brainwashing. And it shows in things like being fine with exposure to violence from a young age. Contrast that to people freaking out at nudity, and it makes for a silly juxtaposition.
4eleven7 4y ago
People who go to a nude beach, opt in to a nude beach. People who turn on Nudity check, opt in to a nude check.
- buro9 4y ago
  Was in Valencia, went to the beach... it's just a beach. People were naked, it's just normal. It's not a "nude beach"... it's "beach".
  - Erikun 4y ago
    Europe is a big place, maybe that beach was that way but its definitely not the norm. Naturist beaches are usually separate or there is a section that that is for naturists. In Sweden (where I live), even topless sunbathing is unusual nowadays.
    - darkwater 4y ago
      That's weird because in Spain - where nowadays topless sunbathing for women is absolutely normal in every beach - was "imported" by the first northern-European (legend usually say Swedish) tourists during late-Franco dictatorship.
    - raxxorraxor 4y ago
      It wasn't just 10 years ago but now you see almost all people with phones on the beach and many opt out to show anything.
    - tpxl 4y ago
      Been to Gran Canaria recently (technically Spain), and every beach had topless women sunbathing (even the big city beach). Don't recall seeing fully nude adults though, as those beaches will be segregated IME.
  - refurb 4y ago
    That doesn't seem that special considering there are nude beaches in the US. I'm pretty sure "America is scared of naked bodies" is some internet folk tail that Europeans love to tell.
carlmr 4y ago
>At the same time in Europe you go to a nude beach and there are whole families with kids and literally nobody has problems with it. Clothing is optional. No one bothers nude people, no one bothers clothed ones. At least the ones I've seen in Germany have a nude section and a non-nude section. It's usually not mixed.
- Galaxeblaffer 4y ago
  But you can still show your nipples at the non nude section
  - Erikun 4y ago
    Sure, but even that has become more uncommon than it used to be, in my experience.
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    You can also show your dick in non-nude sections. You have to be sensible of time and place but the likelyhood of someone complaining is very low if you do it near a lake or the sea. Pretty high when you do it in the city center or in church. At least it was common in the region I lived, there are more prissy places though. I wouldn't do it anymore when everyone has a smartphone though even if taking pictures will get you in huge trouble too.
- watwut 4y ago
  By custom yes. By law, whole Germany is nude section. You have groups of nude people in public parks, right in the middle next to bike road.
  - carlmr 4y ago
    Topless, yes, but nude?
    - watwut 4y ago
      Yep, nude.
tomduncalf 4y ago
I think it’s more about the potential for child abuse than prudishness
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sph 4y ago
  "Oh, think of the children!" Child abuse is a terrible problem, but big tech and politicians are using it as leverage to erode all of our right to privacy. What's next, let's monitor all text communication to stop perverts texting with your child? It will be hailed as another great step towards fighting paedophilia. The problem with the "child abuse" angle is that protesting against these changes turns everybody against you, because normal people don't have anything to hide. "Why do you hate the children?" We are losing all of our right to privacy with a massive applause.
  - techdragon 4y ago
    This is the major problem when trying to educate people about anything privacy related... Living in Australia I've watched the government basically grant itself the legal right to do whatever the fuck it likes with computers and communications over the last few years, and its been a horrible outright depressing journey. Once people internalise the "nothing to hide" argument they begin to reach for the question "what do you have to hide that makes you think this isn't ok" before they are even prompted with the usual arguments about it only being for finding drugs, guns, terrorists, pedophiles, etc The fact this is on device and off by default is good because that's how this sort of customer feature should be built, like being able to install a DNS filter or other website filtering software. If you're worried, these options should be available to protect your children... but sadly its a small step from "these are available" to "why didn't the government make them turn it on before I bought it for my child and didn't turn it on before giving it to my child"
  - matthewmacleod 4y ago
    Explain which aspect of this feature involves an erosion of the right to privacy.
aviramha 4y ago
While I understand the criticism - this is not the point of Apple. Unsolicited nudity is usually used for harassment. I assume that also in Europe sending unsolicited nude photos to adult and kids isn't okay.
- hericium 4y ago
  Apple's new favorite reasoning for invigilation is kids' protection. Ban all knifes because someone can use a knife to harm a child. They wouldn't do it if it wasn't profitable in some way or another. But would they choose to give other reasons for their actions, there would definitely be more backslash about their snooping. People in general know that protecting the innocent is a good thing and Apple exploits this to push their agendas under the guise of children protection. Again.
  - knighthack 4y ago
    Relevant trope: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThinkOfTheChildren https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThinkOfTheChildr...
  - olliej 4y ago
    … you mean Apple provides a feature in its parental controls to allow parents to limit nudity being sent to their kids devices? Like yes: the explicit purpose of parental controls is to allow parents to place limits on what their kids can do on a device, and in America specifically protect them from the concept of people existing under their clothes. But I fail to see what Apple is doing here that you find offensive? Did you read the article and description of how the feature is enabled and works or did you just decide “Apple is evil and is choosing what I get to see”?
  - dereg 4y ago
    Do you realize the irony of saying that Americans are overprotectionists, using Europe as a comparison, when the EU may be the most sprawling, onerous, and protectionist regulatory state to exist on this planet?
lozenge 4y ago
So you're OK with your child receiving unexpected messages of erect penises? Because that's what this feature is actually about if you read past the headline. Not "banning" anything but putting users and parents in control.
- vincnetas 4y ago
  you can extend this to everything. are you ok your children reciving gore pics, are you ok your kids receiving anarchyst cookbooks, are you ok your kids receiving comunist propoganda? are you ok your kids receiving any random messges from anonymous users? if not i guess just whitelist contacts your kid is allowed to interact. but i myself prefere to talk about world and explain how things work and what you can expect to encounter when growing up rather than growing your kid in petri dish. eventualy they will see errect penis :)
  - djaychela 4y ago
    How old are your kids?
    - vincnetas 4y ago
      to clearify apple feature looks reasonable to me. 4 and 7. ... and now im questioning my previous comment in my head about how certain i am about what i wrote :)
    - heavenlyblue 4y ago
      I think the more important question is how old are your kids?
      - djaychela 4y ago
        Between 15 and 23. It's easy to live in a utopian ideal where you say "We'll talk to them about all of this, and they'll be rational and see sense", but having spent the last 3+ years firefighting the impact of their spectacularly stupid behaviour (all 4 kids are above average IQ, but all of them have ASD diagnoses, all of them fall into the 'loud, confident and wrong' category) - a lot of which has involved impact with people whose opinions are along the lines of free speech absolutists mixed with 8chan lunacy - whenever I see people crowing about how terrible all these ideas are, I think they probably haven't spent sleepless nights comforting their child's mother because one of the kids has spent another night in a hospital, institution or police custody because of undue influence placed on them whether it's because of social pressure, or because they've been convinced by a nutter to send nudes and use that against them. I'm well aware you can't protect them from all these things, but a lot of people who have young kids seem to think that as soon as they get to school it'll all be OK. My experience has been that the games get harder and stakes rise drastically, to the point where I often consider that killing myself would be a logical way out.
cato_the_elder 4y ago
> That's so American. Not sure if I see anything particularly wrong with that. Apple is an American company.
- sph 4y ago
  Not all their customers are.
  - olliej 4y ago
    And you don’t have to navigate through multiple layers of settings to turn the feature on if you don’t want to?
  - cato_the_elder 4y ago
    This is opt-in, they can choose not to use it.
  - refurb 4y ago
    Then don't buy Apple, go and buy a mobile phone from a European maker.
shultays 4y ago
How one can compare "going to a nude beach with a kid" with "sending penis pictures to a kid"?
- llbeansandrice 4y ago
  I'm floored this is at the top of the comments. But I guess "I didn't read the article. America bad." is what gets upvotes. I have a feeling that sending nudes to a child's phone isn't exactly lauded as "natural" in Europe. Of course I'm a prude, unnatural, and I guess violent American though so what do I know. Not to mention it's an opt-in parental control feature for children's accounts.
  - Sporktacular 4y ago
    Of course it's not natural in Europe and their are laws against this kind of thing. The quality of the comments here are really poor.
  - throwaway654329 4y ago
    In art class in an American high school it was common to discuss and share digital images of famous nudes. I’m sure this system won’t interfere with that at all because of course the only nudity people might see or share is bad, right? In case my sarcasm isn’t clear: of course it will interfere with art classes. Imagine if the art under discussion is photography? Then students and teachers will be sharing real nudes which are completely appropriate under the supervision of adults. Pornography like artistic creativity is contextual and the eye of the beholder. Here we see the eye is a black box of AI. This is horrifying. Likely it will mean this type of education simply won’t happen in these spaces. This is a direct and immediate limitation on free people. The primary problem with censorship isn’t usually the core motivation. We can all agree that adults shouldn’t send porn to kids, and kids shouldn’t send nudes to anyone, etc etc. Sadly we don’t all agree on what that means - the law is a poor substitute for thinking and understanding context. Automatic policing will lead to automatic prosecution, we have seen this with Facebook intercepting messages and automatically dispatching relevant authorities. In the case of suicide risks, many agreed this was a public good. Is it a public good when it is done for pot which is illegal federally even though it is legal in California? Do we really want a private company making these choices? Do we really want them in the middle even if it’s “on device” when the device isn’t even open for meaningful inspection? It is the infrastructure and the corner cases which create a chilling effect on society. Once this is done in one place, it will expand to others. Do you really think that Saudi won’t push for this on every woman’s telephone? Why limit it only to children? And why limit it only to being opt in? Do you really not see the future you’re endorsing and that apple is building based on profit motives which are dressed up as “obvious” moral protection schemes? Remember: the husband in Saudi is the legal guardian/censor of his children but also his fully grown (usually but not always) adult wife. This can technically expand to textual rather than image censorship as well, we should stop it before that happens. Your device is your own personal space as much as the device is yours or as permitted by law (eg union organization on company time and company computers is sometimes protected). Providing solutions to do automatic policing on your own device is insanely totalitarian. It isn’t a solution to doing it on company servers which also should not happen. We should not be building this technology and we should regulate the companies to uphold basic civil liberties, especially when they are a de facto monopoly.
dt2m 4y ago
You raise a great point here. I’m born and raised in Europe, still live here now, but I’ve spent a great deal of time in the US, and the differences in how we perceive children might be the biggest gap between the two cultures. I much prefer the European view of children being raised as young adults, seeing the world for what it is, rather than the American idea of creating a puritan parallel society scrubbed of all the “bad” things. Looking back on this I’ve found that the European model raises better critical thinkers – partly due to the school system as well – and you end up with a more sustainable parent-child relationship when the children are grown. In a world where US culture basically shapes the design of the tech products and social media we all use, this scares me.
- nonrandomstring 4y ago
  > In a world where US culture basically shapes the design of the tech products and social media we all use, this scares me. This is a key point. Today we are all so progressively aware of "cultural hegemony" and wallow in the shame of colonialism. But we don't see its new and more powerful forms. The prevalence of digital technology means that companies like Apple and Google imposing their values is a real problem. And let's be clear, these are often very parochial values. It could be said that Europe's digital split with US is only about things like privacy and data control on the surface. Underneath are more subtle cultural forces at play.
  - pawsforthought 4y ago
    > The prevalence of digital technology means that companies like Apple and Google imposing their values is a real problem. And let's be clear, these are often very parochial values. And sadly, beneath all the headlines about AI sentience, this is what Blake Lemoine was actually trying to draw attention to, and that executives consistently dismiss these kinds of concerns [1]. What of the consequences when these corporate values become embedded in AI that plays an ever greater role in our lives? [1]: https://youtu.be/kgCUn4fQTsc?t=4m23s https://youtu.be/kgCUn4fQTsc?t=4m23s
- deepdriver 4y ago
  The German band Rammstein made a song about this feeling, with a great music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM
deleted 4y ago
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baobob 4y ago
I think you need to qualify "in Europe", as a European it is certainly not true of any place I ever lived "in Europe". That aside, it would be nice if we could survive just a single thread about a child protection feature without endless absurdist arguments and strawmen being offered. I appreciate the reply to this comment indicating nudity is often unsolicited. That's very true. A productive thread regarding a feature like this might include discussion of how to limit its scope, or how it might be safely extended to other kinds of harmful content a child might want to avoid. A pointless thread might be one where the heart of the tech industry continues to ignore the fact many new parents ban all unsupervised Internet and new media usage for their children well into their teens due to problems like this remaining unsolved for decades now, and the industry being utterly incapable of having a sober conversation about it.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > I think you need to qualify "in Europe", as a European it is certainly not true of any place I ever lived "in Europe". Nudist beaches or naturalists' resorts are everywhere in Europe, even where it's less obvious, like in the former communist block. EDIT: if we are talking about kids nudity, like changing them in the open, in front of everybody, that's never been an issue in my almost 50 years on this Planet as European living in Europe.
- gambiting 4y ago
  UK is definitely on the American side of things in this. Lived here for a long time now and there's definitely a lot of that "oh no a child might see a nipple, how awful". But yeah, in Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Spain, maybe even France - people would care a lot less. Especially in Czech Republic and Slovakia - you go to a public swimming pool, people just change in the open, children included, no one minds or cares. (obviously that's just my own travel experience, I don't doubt there are places in all of those countries where that's not true)
  - bambax 4y ago
    The UK made it very clear they don't want to be part of Europe. Which is fine by me.
throwawaylinux 4y ago
Whenever the conversation veers this way, there's always people pipe up to talk about how American it is to have any concerns about nudity, and that this is portrayed to be a bad thing. Which seems extremely European or western centric. Having issues with nudity is absolutely not "American". Nor are Germany or Sweden moral compasses by which everybody else should strive to live like. Look around the world, there are many countries and billions of people around Africa, China, South East Asia, the Middle East, that are as "prudish" if not massively more so than USA. Even with a European or western-centric myopia, does it really hold? How about Poland or New Zealand? In any case, I don't see what the point is. USA is overall not as liberal with nudity as some European countries. So what? Germany has blasphemy laws and laws punishing people who talk about things, is that normal or natural?
olliej 4y ago
Ah yes, it’s very American to ban nudity.. oh, sorry, we must have read different articles as this is an opt in feature in parental controls. I don’t see anything about Apple banning nudity, where are you reading that?
Akronymus 4y ago
Or how in europe, the sauna is nude and people WILL bother you for going in with swimwear. In the US it is the opposite.
akomtu 4y ago
Puritanism is a distraction here. What Apple implements is a in-depth analysis of all messages between its users and not its users who happen to communicate with iphone users. The message scanner analyses not only text, but also images. This will be used to build more detailed user profiles for advertisers and spying agencies, domestic and foreign (Apple is on good terms with China).
dereg 4y ago
Kindly provide your analysis showing a correlation between revenge porn and nude beaches.
refurb 4y ago
Are you saying Europe is cool with 11 years olds sending topless pictures to boys in their class?
TacticalCoder 4y ago
> At the same time in Europe you go to a nude beach and there are whole families with kids and literally nobody has problems with it. Well ok: if you specifically go to a nude beach, I'd expect you'd see naked people and nobody going there having any issue with it. That's why it's called a "nude beach" right? But they're not common. In France where I go the most often, out of 8 kilometers of beaches on the district, there's like 100 meters (1/100th of the coastal area) where nudism is allowed. And it's not even on a beach: it's all rocks. The town hall picked that one spot, far away from the beaches, to isolate the nudists. It's tiny. There may be a few famous nudists spots around the country but they're not common. Still France: there are only two cases I can think of where a woman showing its nipples in public is considered normal and that'd be monokini on the beach (but not full nudism) and breastfeeding. You don't see women walking topless in the streets. Monokini on the beaches is allowed everywhere in France as far as I know but it's way less common to actually see women in monokini than it used to be when I was a kid in the eighties.
- Glawen 4y ago
  I'm in Italy on the beach right now and I'm stunned because I did not see yet a nipple. I didn't know they were prude. On the beach in France I would see nipples everyday.
matthewmacleod 4y ago
But yeah, lets ban more normal/natural stuff. Quite literally nothing has been banned here. I struggle to believe that you read and understood this article before sharing this view. This is an opt-in feature, specifically for use with the existing parental control system, that enables pretty light-touch and overridable prompts if a child receives something that looks like nudity. It's clearly targeted at unsolicited nude pictures being sent to children, and differential cultural views on public nudity have essentially zero relevance to that. Now instead of an interesting discussion about this feature—why it might be good or bad, the privacy or social implications of it, and so on—we just have a chain of fucking nonsense comments unrelated to it.
DSingularity 4y ago
Nobody bothers clothed people? What about France?
_8j50 4y ago
A lot of women getting dick pics would appreciate banning that for sure. I see no problem with this so long as the policy us recipient controlled.
Kalanos 4y ago
this catches child predators. duh
alexruf 4y ago
As an European I agree. I am a bit afraid of this new feature since I might not agree with Apple what falls into the category of sensitive content and what I would consider as ok. In fact there is a big cultural difference. For me personally a nipple or even a fully exposed breast is not a problem (we even have that on public TV), whereas explicit shots of genitals I would agree fall into a category which should be censored.
rmbyrro 4y ago
From studying history, I have the impression the normalization of nudity in public started after WWII in Europe. Could it be that the precarious conditions (families disrupted, lack of intimate space, moral degradation) to which the populations there were submitted during the war shaped this culture? If yes, what does it tell about the value of this culture?
- Jon_Lowtek 4y ago
  here in germany the freikörperkultur was well established in the 19th century. Even more so, for most of human history, bathing nude was the norm. Prior to the 19th century there was no such thing as a Freikörperkultur, because there was no such thing as bathing cloth. The Lebensreform, or "naturalism" as the english speakers call it, was a reaction to the industrial revolutions disruption of natural human behavior, bathing, food, family, community and culture and has little to nothing to do with WW2, except that the nazis tried to suppress it as part of the gleichschaltung. As such it obviously rekindled after WW2, but it is not a post war phenomenon and it is most certainly not moral degradation. The very claim is deeply insulting. Please take your false testament about other peoples cultures history and kindly go away.
ziml77 4y ago
Who's banning anything? This detection is on option for parents on devices that they already have control over. And all it does is blur the image so you have to tap to reveal it as well as include a link to support resources if the child didn't want to see the nude photo.
dgiol 4y ago
Exactly, I wish European mobile makers had adapted faster in the late 2000s. We most likely wouldn't have to deal with the cyber moral police, and total lack of privacy we deal with now (which this is part of)
ksec 4y ago
Finally people are getting it! And it isn't just nude or iMessage either. Tim Cooks' Apple have been forcing their American culture / political stuff to the rest of the world for quite some time. Part of the reason why I wish I could move away from Apple. Unfortunately Microsoft or Google doesn't seems to be competing and they aren't that much different either.
Lloydksk 4y ago
The safety of apple is absolutely horrible. Sometimes you can get banned or scammed. If apple does nothing about it the whole community will be gone. Its a Seruis point.
30944836 4y ago
Sporktacular 4y ago
This seems so reasonable. Nothing is banned, just blurred. It's optional and it only applies to kids' phones. When a nudist put their clothes back on, then that's it. When a photo goes out and spreads beyond the control of the kid, then that's just the beginning. It's just a very good option.
n8cpdx 4y ago
There are places in the US where it’s more like Europe. In Oregon full nudity is 100% legal everywhere, with no restrictions. Yes, I have seen many penisis I didn’t want to see; sometimes from the naked bike rides, sometimes from people in mental health crisis, sometimes from people who are just too high to pull up their pants. Technically it’s only allowed for “protests” in Portland, but nudity laws just practically aren’t enforced. Other natural things I get to see without restriction: smoking meth, shitting on transit stop, lying in pool of own fluids, pissing on lamp post, and having psychotic break. Europeans can only dream of such unbridled freedom.
- mason55 4y ago
  Is that why bars that happen to also have strippers are so normal in Portland?
  - n8cpdx 4y ago
    Yes, loads of strip clubs and full nudity is allowed. There are gay strip clubs, vegan strip clubs, and a whole range beyond that.
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anecdotal1 4y ago
> That's so American. Except in Japan they install an app called Kodomamo onto kids phones to do this exact thing.
throw10920 4y ago
What an absurd, ridiculous, insane strawman argument. Apple is banning nobody and nothing. Apple is providing an opt-in mechanism for screening for potential nudity for parents that may want to give a phone to a child that they haven't had the talk with. Categorically different.
d1sxeyes 4y ago
The linked article explains in detail that not only is this not a ban, it's completely opt-in. It's just an NSFW screen that you can click straight through. For me, the benefit is that it gives children an extra thinking moment before they view something that may not be appropriate, or send something that they may not feel 100% comfortable doing. I've lived in Europe all my life and I'd 100% enable this for my kid.
dang 4y ago
You broke the HN guidelines badly with this post, which predictably started a tedious, generic, off-topic, and eventually nasty flamewar. Please don't post like that again. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Note these in particular: "Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." "Don't be snarky."

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

Children sharing nude photos of themselves, or being sent unsolicited nudes, is not normal / natural. As an adult you can just turn this feature off, if you use messages for this kind of thing.

adrianN 4y ago
Children taking photos is not natural.
- Hackbraten 4y ago
  Taking photos is not natural.
deleted 4y ago
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ilikehurdles 4y ago
Photos are not natural. From that basic fact you can extend any activity surrounding them to be unnatural. Kids seeing themselves or each other nude is pretty normal. Kids are curious. That being said, luckily none of the awkward curiosities we entertained when I was a kid had any chance of ending up on some kind of iCloud permanent record, so maybe this is for the better.

vletal 4y ago

It does not ban anything, it provides opt-in warnings to protect kids from obtaining or sending nudes.

petre 4y ago

sschueller 4y ago

cato_the_elder 4y ago
Different countries have different cultures. That seems alright to me.
- tommit 4y ago
  Yes, obviously that's alright. It's nonetheless also alright to wonder about or even question the reason behind those different cultures. As a European, it's just really, really strange to see how everything war, gore, death and guns seems to be alright for the kids overseas, but don't you dare show a nipple or say a bad word. I respect your culture, even like lots about it. But sorry, that's weird.
  - cato_the_elder 4y ago
    Right, but there seems to be a strange belief that the US in particular shouldn't have its own culture. My objection is to that. That's kinda American exceptionalism at its worst. Europeans have their own share if strange cultural phenomenon, BTW. E.g. apparently they don't feed their guests in Sweden. [1] [1]: https://nypost.com/2022/05/31/countries-where-feeding-house-guests-is-not-the-cultural-norm/ https://nypost.com/2022/05/31/countries-where-feeding-house-...
    - tommit 4y ago
      I don't think anyone feels like the US shouldn't have its own culture -- definitely not more so than other places. If anything, the US injects its culture everywhere, due to entertainment being a primary export. And most of it is completely fine. People may shake their heads at certain things, much like you guys shake your head at the thought of not feeding your guests. But that's fine. It's just that (sorry for using such a provocative word) the entire war/gun-fetishism is weird af for most outsiders. The way I see it, it's at least equal parts culture and excessive lobbying/brainwashing. And it shows in things like being fine with exposure to violence from a young age. Contrast that to people freaking out at nudity, and it makes for a silly juxtaposition.

4eleven7 4y ago

People who go to a nude beach, opt in to a nude beach. People who turn on Nudity check, opt in to a nude check.

buro9 4y ago
Was in Valencia, went to the beach... it's just a beach. People were naked, it's just normal. It's not a "nude beach"... it's "beach".
- Erikun 4y ago
  Europe is a big place, maybe that beach was that way but its definitely not the norm. Naturist beaches are usually separate or there is a section that that is for naturists. In Sweden (where I live), even topless sunbathing is unusual nowadays.
  - darkwater 4y ago
    That's weird because in Spain - where nowadays topless sunbathing for women is absolutely normal in every beach - was "imported" by the first northern-European (legend usually say Swedish) tourists during late-Franco dictatorship.
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    It wasn't just 10 years ago but now you see almost all people with phones on the beach and many opt out to show anything.
  - tpxl 4y ago
    Been to Gran Canaria recently (technically Spain), and every beach had topless women sunbathing (even the big city beach). Don't recall seeing fully nude adults though, as those beaches will be segregated IME.
- refurb 4y ago
  That doesn't seem that special considering there are nude beaches in the US. I'm pretty sure "America is scared of naked bodies" is some internet folk tail that Europeans love to tell.

carlmr 4y ago

>At the same time in Europe you go to a nude beach and there are whole families with kids and literally nobody has problems with it. Clothing is optional. No one bothers nude people, no one bothers clothed ones. At least the ones I've seen in Germany have a nude section and a non-nude section. It's usually not mixed.

Galaxeblaffer 4y ago
But you can still show your nipples at the non nude section
- Erikun 4y ago
  Sure, but even that has become more uncommon than it used to be, in my experience.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  You can also show your dick in non-nude sections. You have to be sensible of time and place but the likelyhood of someone complaining is very low if you do it near a lake or the sea. Pretty high when you do it in the city center or in church. At least it was common in the region I lived, there are more prissy places though. I wouldn't do it anymore when everyone has a smartphone though even if taking pictures will get you in huge trouble too.
watwut 4y ago
By custom yes. By law, whole Germany is nude section. You have groups of nude people in public parks, right in the middle next to bike road.
- carlmr 4y ago
  Topless, yes, but nude?
  - watwut 4y ago
    Yep, nude.

tomduncalf 4y ago

I think it’s more about the potential for child abuse than prudishness

deleted 4y ago
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sph 4y ago
"Oh, think of the children!" Child abuse is a terrible problem, but big tech and politicians are using it as leverage to erode all of our right to privacy. What's next, let's monitor all text communication to stop perverts texting with your child? It will be hailed as another great step towards fighting paedophilia. The problem with the "child abuse" angle is that protesting against these changes turns everybody against you, because normal people don't have anything to hide. "Why do you hate the children?" We are losing all of our right to privacy with a massive applause.
- techdragon 4y ago
  This is the major problem when trying to educate people about anything privacy related... Living in Australia I've watched the government basically grant itself the legal right to do whatever the fuck it likes with computers and communications over the last few years, and its been a horrible outright depressing journey. Once people internalise the "nothing to hide" argument they begin to reach for the question "what do you have to hide that makes you think this isn't ok" before they are even prompted with the usual arguments about it only being for finding drugs, guns, terrorists, pedophiles, etc The fact this is on device and off by default is good because that's how this sort of customer feature should be built, like being able to install a DNS filter or other website filtering software. If you're worried, these options should be available to protect your children... but sadly its a small step from "these are available" to "why didn't the government make them turn it on before I bought it for my child and didn't turn it on before giving it to my child"
- matthewmacleod 4y ago
  Explain which aspect of this feature involves an erosion of the right to privacy.

aviramha 4y ago

While I understand the criticism - this is not the point of Apple. Unsolicited nudity is usually used for harassment. I assume that also in Europe sending unsolicited nude photos to adult and kids isn't okay.

hericium 4y ago
Apple's new favorite reasoning for invigilation is kids' protection. Ban all knifes because someone can use a knife to harm a child. They wouldn't do it if it wasn't profitable in some way or another. But would they choose to give other reasons for their actions, there would definitely be more backslash about their snooping. People in general know that protecting the innocent is a good thing and Apple exploits this to push their agendas under the guise of children protection. Again.
- knighthack 4y ago
  Relevant trope: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThinkOfTheChildren https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThinkOfTheChildr...
- olliej 4y ago
  … you mean Apple provides a feature in its parental controls to allow parents to limit nudity being sent to their kids devices? Like yes: the explicit purpose of parental controls is to allow parents to place limits on what their kids can do on a device, and in America specifically protect them from the concept of people existing under their clothes. But I fail to see what Apple is doing here that you find offensive? Did you read the article and description of how the feature is enabled and works or did you just decide “Apple is evil and is choosing what I get to see”?
- dereg 4y ago
  Do you realize the irony of saying that Americans are overprotectionists, using Europe as a comparison, when the EU may be the most sprawling, onerous, and protectionist regulatory state to exist on this planet?

lozenge 4y ago

So you're OK with your child receiving unexpected messages of erect penises? Because that's what this feature is actually about if you read past the headline. Not "banning" anything but putting users and parents in control.

vincnetas 4y ago
you can extend this to everything. are you ok your children reciving gore pics, are you ok your kids receiving anarchyst cookbooks, are you ok your kids receiving comunist propoganda? are you ok your kids receiving any random messges from anonymous users? if not i guess just whitelist contacts your kid is allowed to interact. but i myself prefere to talk about world and explain how things work and what you can expect to encounter when growing up rather than growing your kid in petri dish. eventualy they will see errect penis :)
- djaychela 4y ago
  How old are your kids?
  - vincnetas 4y ago
    to clearify apple feature looks reasonable to me. 4 and 7. ... and now im questioning my previous comment in my head about how certain i am about what i wrote :)
  - heavenlyblue 4y ago
    I think the more important question is how old are your kids?
    - djaychela 4y ago
      Between 15 and 23. It's easy to live in a utopian ideal where you say "We'll talk to them about all of this, and they'll be rational and see sense", but having spent the last 3+ years firefighting the impact of their spectacularly stupid behaviour (all 4 kids are above average IQ, but all of them have ASD diagnoses, all of them fall into the 'loud, confident and wrong' category) - a lot of which has involved impact with people whose opinions are along the lines of free speech absolutists mixed with 8chan lunacy - whenever I see people crowing about how terrible all these ideas are, I think they probably haven't spent sleepless nights comforting their child's mother because one of the kids has spent another night in a hospital, institution or police custody because of undue influence placed on them whether it's because of social pressure, or because they've been convinced by a nutter to send nudes and use that against them. I'm well aware you can't protect them from all these things, but a lot of people who have young kids seem to think that as soon as they get to school it'll all be OK. My experience has been that the games get harder and stakes rise drastically, to the point where I often consider that killing myself would be a logical way out.

cato_the_elder 4y ago

> That's so American. Not sure if I see anything particularly wrong with that. Apple is an American company.

sph 4y ago
Not all their customers are.
- olliej 4y ago
  And you don’t have to navigate through multiple layers of settings to turn the feature on if you don’t want to?
- cato_the_elder 4y ago
  This is opt-in, they can choose not to use it.
- refurb 4y ago
  Then don't buy Apple, go and buy a mobile phone from a European maker.

shultays 4y ago

How one can compare "going to a nude beach with a kid" with "sending penis pictures to a kid"?

llbeansandrice 4y ago
I'm floored this is at the top of the comments. But I guess "I didn't read the article. America bad." is what gets upvotes. I have a feeling that sending nudes to a child's phone isn't exactly lauded as "natural" in Europe. Of course I'm a prude, unnatural, and I guess violent American though so what do I know. Not to mention it's an opt-in parental control feature for children's accounts.
- Sporktacular 4y ago
  Of course it's not natural in Europe and their are laws against this kind of thing. The quality of the comments here are really poor.
- throwaway654329 4y ago
  In art class in an American high school it was common to discuss and share digital images of famous nudes. I’m sure this system won’t interfere with that at all because of course the only nudity people might see or share is bad, right? In case my sarcasm isn’t clear: of course it will interfere with art classes. Imagine if the art under discussion is photography? Then students and teachers will be sharing real nudes which are completely appropriate under the supervision of adults. Pornography like artistic creativity is contextual and the eye of the beholder. Here we see the eye is a black box of AI. This is horrifying. Likely it will mean this type of education simply won’t happen in these spaces. This is a direct and immediate limitation on free people. The primary problem with censorship isn’t usually the core motivation. We can all agree that adults shouldn’t send porn to kids, and kids shouldn’t send nudes to anyone, etc etc. Sadly we don’t all agree on what that means - the law is a poor substitute for thinking and understanding context. Automatic policing will lead to automatic prosecution, we have seen this with Facebook intercepting messages and automatically dispatching relevant authorities. In the case of suicide risks, many agreed this was a public good. Is it a public good when it is done for pot which is illegal federally even though it is legal in California? Do we really want a private company making these choices? Do we really want them in the middle even if it’s “on device” when the device isn’t even open for meaningful inspection? It is the infrastructure and the corner cases which create a chilling effect on society. Once this is done in one place, it will expand to others. Do you really think that Saudi won’t push for this on every woman’s telephone? Why limit it only to children? And why limit it only to being opt in? Do you really not see the future you’re endorsing and that apple is building based on profit motives which are dressed up as “obvious” moral protection schemes? Remember: the husband in Saudi is the legal guardian/censor of his children but also his fully grown (usually but not always) adult wife. This can technically expand to textual rather than image censorship as well, we should stop it before that happens. Your device is your own personal space as much as the device is yours or as permitted by law (eg union organization on company time and company computers is sometimes protected). Providing solutions to do automatic policing on your own device is insanely totalitarian. It isn’t a solution to doing it on company servers which also should not happen. We should not be building this technology and we should regulate the companies to uphold basic civil liberties, especially when they are a de facto monopoly.

dt2m 4y ago

You raise a great point here. I’m born and raised in Europe, still live here now, but I’ve spent a great deal of time in the US, and the differences in how we perceive children might be the biggest gap between the two cultures. I much prefer the European view of children being raised as young adults, seeing the world for what it is, rather than the American idea of creating a puritan parallel society scrubbed of all the “bad” things. Looking back on this I’ve found that the European model raises better critical thinkers – partly due to the school system as well – and you end up with a more sustainable parent-child relationship when the children are grown. In a world where US culture basically shapes the design of the tech products and social media we all use, this scares me.

nonrandomstring 4y ago
> In a world where US culture basically shapes the design of the tech products and social media we all use, this scares me. This is a key point. Today we are all so progressively aware of "cultural hegemony" and wallow in the shame of colonialism. But we don't see its new and more powerful forms. The prevalence of digital technology means that companies like Apple and Google imposing their values is a real problem. And let's be clear, these are often very parochial values. It could be said that Europe's digital split with US is only about things like privacy and data control on the surface. Underneath are more subtle cultural forces at play.
- pawsforthought 4y ago
  > The prevalence of digital technology means that companies like Apple and Google imposing their values is a real problem. And let's be clear, these are often very parochial values. And sadly, beneath all the headlines about AI sentience, this is what Blake Lemoine was actually trying to draw attention to, and that executives consistently dismiss these kinds of concerns [1]. What of the consequences when these corporate values become embedded in AI that plays an ever greater role in our lives? [1]: https://youtu.be/kgCUn4fQTsc?t=4m23s https://youtu.be/kgCUn4fQTsc?t=4m23s
deepdriver 4y ago
The German band Rammstein made a song about this feeling, with a great music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM

deleted 4y ago

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baobob 4y ago

I think you need to qualify "in Europe", as a European it is certainly not true of any place I ever lived "in Europe". That aside, it would be nice if we could survive just a single thread about a child protection feature without endless absurdist arguments and strawmen being offered. I appreciate the reply to this comment indicating nudity is often unsolicited. That's very true. A productive thread regarding a feature like this might include discussion of how to limit its scope, or how it might be safely extended to other kinds of harmful content a child might want to avoid. A pointless thread might be one where the heart of the tech industry continues to ignore the fact many new parents ban all unsupervised Internet and new media usage for their children well into their teens due to problems like this remaining unsolved for decades now, and the industry being utterly incapable of having a sober conversation about it.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> I think you need to qualify "in Europe", as a European it is certainly not true of any place I ever lived "in Europe". Nudist beaches or naturalists' resorts are everywhere in Europe, even where it's less obvious, like in the former communist block. EDIT: if we are talking about kids nudity, like changing them in the open, in front of everybody, that's never been an issue in my almost 50 years on this Planet as European living in Europe.
gambiting 4y ago
UK is definitely on the American side of things in this. Lived here for a long time now and there's definitely a lot of that "oh no a child might see a nipple, how awful". But yeah, in Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Spain, maybe even France - people would care a lot less. Especially in Czech Republic and Slovakia - you go to a public swimming pool, people just change in the open, children included, no one minds or cares. (obviously that's just my own travel experience, I don't doubt there are places in all of those countries where that's not true)
- bambax 4y ago
  The UK made it very clear they don't want to be part of Europe. Which is fine by me.

throwawaylinux 4y ago

Whenever the conversation veers this way, there's always people pipe up to talk about how American it is to have any concerns about nudity, and that this is portrayed to be a bad thing. Which seems extremely European or western centric. Having issues with nudity is absolutely not "American". Nor are Germany or Sweden moral compasses by which everybody else should strive to live like. Look around the world, there are many countries and billions of people around Africa, China, South East Asia, the Middle East, that are as "prudish" if not massively more so than USA. Even with a European or western-centric myopia, does it really hold? How about Poland or New Zealand? In any case, I don't see what the point is. USA is overall not as liberal with nudity as some European countries. So what? Germany has blasphemy laws and laws punishing people who talk about things, is that normal or natural?

olliej 4y ago

Ah yes, it’s very American to ban nudity.. oh, sorry, we must have read different articles as this is an opt in feature in parental controls. I don’t see anything about Apple banning nudity, where are you reading that?

Akronymus 4y ago

Or how in europe, the sauna is nude and people WILL bother you for going in with swimwear. In the US it is the opposite.

akomtu 4y ago

Puritanism is a distraction here. What Apple implements is a in-depth analysis of all messages between its users and not its users who happen to communicate with iphone users. The message scanner analyses not only text, but also images. This will be used to build more detailed user profiles for advertisers and spying agencies, domestic and foreign (Apple is on good terms with China).

dereg 4y ago

Kindly provide your analysis showing a correlation between revenge porn and nude beaches.

refurb 4y ago

Are you saying Europe is cool with 11 years olds sending topless pictures to boys in their class?

TacticalCoder 4y ago

> At the same time in Europe you go to a nude beach and there are whole families with kids and literally nobody has problems with it. Well ok: if you specifically go to a nude beach, I'd expect you'd see naked people and nobody going there having any issue with it. That's why it's called a "nude beach" right? But they're not common. In France where I go the most often, out of 8 kilometers of beaches on the district, there's like 100 meters (1/100th of the coastal area) where nudism is allowed. And it's not even on a beach: it's all rocks. The town hall picked that one spot, far away from the beaches, to isolate the nudists. It's tiny. There may be a few famous nudists spots around the country but they're not common. Still France: there are only two cases I can think of where a woman showing its nipples in public is considered normal and that'd be monokini on the beach (but not full nudism) and breastfeeding. You don't see women walking topless in the streets. Monokini on the beaches is allowed everywhere in France as far as I know but it's way less common to actually see women in monokini than it used to be when I was a kid in the eighties.

Glawen 4y ago
I'm in Italy on the beach right now and I'm stunned because I did not see yet a nipple. I didn't know they were prude. On the beach in France I would see nipples everyday.

matthewmacleod 4y ago

But yeah, lets ban more normal/natural stuff. Quite literally nothing has been banned here. I struggle to believe that you read and understood this article before sharing this view. This is an opt-in feature, specifically for use with the existing parental control system, that enables pretty light-touch and overridable prompts if a child receives something that looks like nudity. It's clearly targeted at unsolicited nude pictures being sent to children, and differential cultural views on public nudity have essentially zero relevance to that. Now instead of an interesting discussion about this feature—why it might be good or bad, the privacy or social implications of it, and so on—we just have a chain of fucking nonsense comments unrelated to it.

DSingularity 4y ago

Nobody bothers clothed people? What about France?

_8j50 4y ago

A lot of women getting dick pics would appreciate banning that for sure. I see no problem with this so long as the policy us recipient controlled.

Kalanos 4y ago

this catches child predators. duh

alexruf 4y ago

As an European I agree. I am a bit afraid of this new feature since I might not agree with Apple what falls into the category of sensitive content and what I would consider as ok. In fact there is a big cultural difference. For me personally a nipple or even a fully exposed breast is not a problem (we even have that on public TV), whereas explicit shots of genitals I would agree fall into a category which should be censored.

rmbyrro 4y ago

From studying history, I have the impression the normalization of nudity in public started after WWII in Europe. Could it be that the precarious conditions (families disrupted, lack of intimate space, moral degradation) to which the populations there were submitted during the war shaped this culture? If yes, what does it tell about the value of this culture?

Jon_Lowtek 4y ago
here in germany the freikörperkultur was well established in the 19th century. Even more so, for most of human history, bathing nude was the norm. Prior to the 19th century there was no such thing as a Freikörperkultur, because there was no such thing as bathing cloth. The Lebensreform, or "naturalism" as the english speakers call it, was a reaction to the industrial revolutions disruption of natural human behavior, bathing, food, family, community and culture and has little to nothing to do with WW2, except that the nazis tried to suppress it as part of the gleichschaltung. As such it obviously rekindled after WW2, but it is not a post war phenomenon and it is most certainly not moral degradation. The very claim is deeply insulting. Please take your false testament about other peoples cultures history and kindly go away.

ziml77 4y ago

Who's banning anything? This detection is on option for parents on devices that they already have control over. And all it does is blur the image so you have to tap to reveal it as well as include a link to support resources if the child didn't want to see the nude photo.

dgiol 4y ago

Exactly, I wish European mobile makers had adapted faster in the late 2000s. We most likely wouldn't have to deal with the cyber moral police, and total lack of privacy we deal with now (which this is part of)

ksec 4y ago

Finally people are getting it! And it isn't just nude or iMessage either. Tim Cooks' Apple have been forcing their American culture / political stuff to the rest of the world for quite some time. Part of the reason why I wish I could move away from Apple. Unfortunately Microsoft or Google doesn't seems to be competing and they aren't that much different either.

Lloydksk 4y ago

The safety of apple is absolutely horrible. Sometimes you can get banned or scammed. If apple does nothing about it the whole community will be gone. Its a Seruis point.

30944836 4y ago

Sporktacular 4y ago

This seems so reasonable. Nothing is banned, just blurred. It's optional and it only applies to kids' phones. When a nudist put their clothes back on, then that's it. When a photo goes out and spreads beyond the control of the kid, then that's just the beginning. It's just a very good option.

n8cpdx 4y ago

There are places in the US where it’s more like Europe. In Oregon full nudity is 100% legal everywhere, with no restrictions. Yes, I have seen many penisis I didn’t want to see; sometimes from the naked bike rides, sometimes from people in mental health crisis, sometimes from people who are just too high to pull up their pants. Technically it’s only allowed for “protests” in Portland, but nudity laws just practically aren’t enforced. Other natural things I get to see without restriction: smoking meth, shitting on transit stop, lying in pool of own fluids, pissing on lamp post, and having psychotic break. Europeans can only dream of such unbridled freedom.

mason55 4y ago
Is that why bars that happen to also have strippers are so normal in Portland?
- n8cpdx 4y ago
  Yes, loads of strip clubs and full nudity is allowed. There are gay strip clubs, vegan strip clubs, and a whole range beyond that.

deleted 4y ago

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anecdotal1 4y ago

> That's so American. Except in Japan they install an app called Kodomamo onto kids phones to do this exact thing.

throw10920 4y ago

What an absurd, ridiculous, insane strawman argument. Apple is banning nobody and nothing. Apple is providing an opt-in mechanism for screening for potential nudity for parents that may want to give a phone to a child that they haven't had the talk with. Categorically different.

d1sxeyes 4y ago

The linked article explains in detail that not only is this not a ban, it's completely opt-in. It's just an NSFW screen that you can click straight through. For me, the benefit is that it gives children an extra thinking moment before they view something that may not be appropriate, or send something that they may not feel 100% comfortable doing. I've lived in Europe all my life and I'd 100% enable this for my kid.

dang 4y ago

You broke the HN guidelines badly with this post, which predictably started a tedious, generic, off-topic, and eventually nasty flamewar. Please don't post like that again. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Note these in particular: "Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." "Don't be snarky."