News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring . Parent comment

Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by ivankirigin on Thursday August 06, 2009 @03:21PM (#746192)
School censoring and rating systems are both bullshit. They oppress minorities and creativity. A software platform has far less justification to follow a similar pattern.

The idea that children shouldn't see swear words is leading to a categorical error. The debate is about how much, for which there is no right answer, instead of if at all.

As a parent, let me put some authority behind it and say the parental control is the off switch. If parents aren't there to turn it off - guess what: your kids are already looking at donkey porn, and there is nothing you can do about it.

The whole issue is such a farce, where Apple is really looking to give the impression that it cares and controls the situation, when it doesn't. They make a web browser that can easily search for porn. Is there effectively a difference between that and an app where you can search for a dry definition of a dirty word?

There is a difference - the browser is far worse. And not restricted. And made by Apple itself.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by sp332 on Thursday August 06, 2009 @04:07PM (#746282)
I agree with your main point, but how does school censoring oppress minorities?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by calambrac on Thursday August 06, 2009 @03:32PM (#746214)
I completely agree with pretty much everything you're saying, but to be fair, the iPhone's parental controls do allow you to lock down the browser.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by ivankirigin on Thursday August 06, 2009 @03:39PM (#746232)
I expect my kids to eventually outsmart anything I do to hide things from them, long before they are old enough to vote.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by calambrac on Thursday August 06, 2009 @03:55PM (#746264)
Okay. That doesn't change the fact that you can lock down Safari on the iPhone, in direct contradiction of your statement "The browser is far worse. And not restricted."

Again, I agree with you in pretty much everything else you're saying. I just think its stupid to pretend like Apple is evil for this particular alleged hypocrisy - "Oh noes, they let kids look at porn without restriction in Safari but ban my dirty word dictionary!" - when their real fuckups are already sufficiently bad.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by ivankirigin on Thursday August 06, 2009 @06:13PM (#746534)
Apple is doing the filtering in the app store. People do the filtering on the browser. That is an important difference.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by calambrac on Thursday August 06, 2009 @07:06PM (#746630)
No, it's not, at least not to the point you were originally making, which was that Apple has put in place a system of control for apps but not for their own browser - that's false.

Why are you hung up on this? I'm not saying "don't be pissed at Apple", I'm saying "don't be pissed at Apple for imaginary things".

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by ivankirigin on Thursday August 06, 2009 @11:34PM (#746942)
I'm not hung up - I'm right. You do bad shit in your app, and apple doesn't let people get it. You do bad shit available in the browser, and apple leaves it up to you do not get it. It's the exact opposite policy.

If there were a parental control for the app store that blocked objectionable content, off by default, this whole issue would go away.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by calambrac on Friday August 07, 2009 @12:25AM (#746995)
If there were a parental control for the app store that blocked objectionable content, off by default, this whole issue would go away.

Um, that's exactly how the parental controls for the app store work. Apple uses the rating system to determine what apps are considered objectionable, the parental controls block access based on those ratings, and access to everything is enabled by default.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by ivankirigin on Friday August 07, 2009 @12:13PM (#747835)
I thought apps with objectionable content don't get in the app store at all. Is that not the case?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by calambrac on Friday August 07, 2009 @02:33PM (#748250)
That's not the case anymore, since the introduction of parental controls in iPhone OS 3.0. That should have been more than clear from the article, Schiller and Gruber both emphasize precisely that point.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by lutorm on Thursday August 06, 2009 @04:38PM (#746340)
But won't locking down the browser mean that you can't access the bus schedule, or their online school books, or whatever other good things there might be on the internet? Sort of a blunt weapon, no? It's like saying that because your eyes may see bad stuff, we will force them to wear eye patches...
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring by calambrac on Thursday August 06, 2009 @04:45PM (#746353)
I wasn't saying that this is a good feature, or that I'm glad it exists, I'm just pointing out that it's there, and that it seems like a waste of time and energy to pretend that Apple's censoring dirty words while giving parents no way to prevent kids from looking at porn with Safari.
[ Parent | on HN ]