The Bynk Zone: Parent your own kids!

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Parent your own kids!

Okay kids, now I'm pissed. Not annoyed, not bemused, but honest to god angry. Once again, "Protecting Children" is being used as a reason for my access to adult, (No, NOT porn, but adult, in the sense of "For grownup sensibilities") entertainment and information to be made still harder. This time, by Kirk McElhearn writing for iPodlounge, in his column called Editorial: Apple's Porno Podcasts, Explicit and Unlabeled.

I can't even say that on the surface it seems reasonable, because it's only reasonable if you're one of those parents who demands that everything on the friggin' planet be reduced to a level suitable for a six - year - old with self-esteem issues. (We'll let the idiotic title go in this case, it's just Dvorakism writ large.)

Kirk is all concerned and worried because ...there are over 3,000 podcasts available for free through the iTunes Music Store. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s a pretty big selection of pornographic content, too. It seems that podcasts such as CrossOver, Fetish Flame, Rope Weekly, and GayPorn Talk are just a huge problem because the lack a voluntary tag that marks them as explicit. (even though at the moment, Fetish Flame does have that tag, and GayPorn talk appears to have disappeared from the site.

Kirk is six kinds of worried because Apple’s iTunes Music Store is designed to appeal to a young demographic, and it surprises me to think that Apple added all of these podcasts without screening their content in any way.. I mean, it's easy to spot the porn right? The title's a dead giveaway as he says: In some cases, the names of the podcasts or descriptions of the episodes are dead giveaways: “check out two dirty stories about couples that cook up some very naughty holiday surprises...”

Well Kirk, I don't see the problem, unless you let small children have unhindered, and unsupervised access to the Internet. You can't be that kind of parent, right?

But Kirk's an open-minded guy...Now I’m no prude, nor a member of any religious or political group crusading against pornography - from my perspective, consenting adults have an indisputable right to choose what they listen to. Moreover, I have no issue with podcasts legitimately presented as educational - as are some of the ones in the screenshot above of the podcast directory section called Health > Sexuality. But, as a father he's very concerned, because he's disturbed that Apple...a company I’ve trusted to have good judgment, seems not to be concerned about the presence of pornography in their podcasts. At least, Apple should provide Explicit warnings on all these podcasts; at best, they should sort through the podcasts they have added (because Apple expressly chose to include these podcasts when launching iTunes 4.9) to weed out what is incompatible with a substantial fraction of their users. Users can subscribe to individual podcasts by adding entering their URLs in a dialog, so those people who want to listen to this type of audio content can do so with no restriction.

See? It's simple. If you want something that's not on the level of Radio Disney, you can just manually enter the URL. Easy access is only for the kiddies. You people who want "that kind" of content can just enter the URL manually. No ease of use for you! After all...Freedom of choice is very important. But free access to porn through a portal designed to attract young users is a big error of judgment. Apple needs to be more responsible about the type of content it provides - not to censor it, but to appropriately label and restrict its access.

Well, pardon me Kirk, but isn't restricting your child's access to content you judge inappropriate for your child your job. Obviously Kirk couldn't be bothered to listen to the podcasts he's stigmatizing as pornography. While Rope Weekly is a bit on the naughty side, CrossOver is simply a podcast for those in the Transgendered community, and sounds like the BBC. Damned preverts, thinking they should have a right to easy access to a podcast of interest to them. You just shut up and listen to Raffi.

Please note that like Kirk, I too am a father. I've an eleven year old son, who has his own Mac. He's got an iPod. Guess who controls what he sees on the internet? Is it some bit of software? Nooooooo. Is it me lobbying RoadRunner to clean up the Intarweb? NOOOoooo. It's me. I do this. I'm a single parent, with a latchkey kid and guess what, I am the one who takes care of the parenting. I preview movies, I blatantly censor what he has on iTunes, I peek in on him with Apple Remote Desktop at random, and I hold the keys to his buddy list and his Address Book. Yeah, it's a lot of work, but that's okay, IT'S MY DAMNED JOB!!

See Kirk, I get very pissy when lazy parents like you demand that any.entity.other.than.yourself dumb itself down to Radio Disney level so that you don't have to keep an eye on your kid. I LIKE having easy access to entertainment that while not pornographic, (or hell, even if it IS porn), is simply not suitable for my child. I don't demand that you live your life according to what I think is appropriate, so how about you return the favor. It's not my job, it's not Apple's job, it's not Britney Spears', Nomar Garciaparra's, Howard Stern's or anyone else's job to raise your kids. It's yours. Don't like it? Tough.

Also, don't give that, "I'm no prude, I think adults have a right to whatever entertainment they want" right after you say you want all content you don't approve of to not be listed in iTunes, and only available via manual URL entry. That's called "hypocrisy" because you obviously don't want anything you don't like to be available with any kind of convenience. Of course, if it's not listed, then how is anyone to know it's there? I guess preverts have their own mailing list or something. It's intellectual cowardice. You obviously only want the content you approve of to be easily accessible, and everyone else can just pound sand, as long as you can turn your kids loose on iTunes with no adult supervision. You remind me of the idiots who assume that people in bookstores and video game stores should not only hide everything but whatever you approve of in the back room, but that they should also watch your kids for you so that you don't have to expend the effort. It reeks of entitlement issues, and parents like you really piss off parents like me and my friends who DO spend considerable effort doing the damned job themselves, because we have this odd idea that our children shouldn't be someone else's burden by default.

So how about you actually get up and do your job? If you can't be bothered to perform all the duties of parent, then you shouldn't have become one in the first place. But in either case, stop lobbying Apple to hide everything that's more mature than "Billy sees a bug" away from iTunes. Because it's not their job to protect your kids, it's yours. Period.

Posted by John C. Welch at 18:50 | Permalink

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» Parental Control for Podcasts? from LameZone
I read an interesting article about the need for parental controls on Podcasts from inside of iTunes. I also read John Welch’s response . Wow. Hey guys, you think we can meet somewhere in the middle? Somewhere that doesn’t involve ce... [Read More]

Tracked on July 7, 2005 11:01 AM

» iTunes for Porno? Get Real. Get Responsible. from NSLog();
You know, I've gotta side with John on this one. As a parent (hey, I can say that now!), I believe in teaching kids to be responsible and in being responsible myself. Part of that responsibility is knowing what my... [Read More]

Tracked on July 7, 2005 01:38 PM

» Podcasts, Parenting, and Censorship from Andyâ€™s Blog
Letâ€™s see, where to start? First, read this article at iPodLounge which discusses the potentially explicit content on Appleâ€™s podcast directory. (You can also read Jobsâ€™ take on the issue at ABC News.) Then for a rebuttal, you can read... [Read More]

Tracked on July 15, 2005 12:12 PM

Comments

We don't allow children to drive cars and many other things. If it's decided that children can't handle the Internet, why do parents insist on letting their kids on? If it comes down to taking content off the net to 'protect the kids' or taking kids off, I would easily choose the latter.

Posted by: nolan | July 7, 2005 08:45 AM

Couldn't agree more.

Posted by: FredB | July 7, 2005 10:11 AM

This whole post is a strange overreaction and a bit on the ad hominem side. Which way do you want it? You claim a parent should raise their own child, but then get unreasonably irate at the suggestion that warning labels might be applied to things to help a parent discern what is okay and what isn't. McElhearn suggests in his article that "...Apple should provide Explicit warnings on all these podcasts" which seems not only reasonable, but perfectly in line with what society demands of other content providers (TV, movies, music, etc.) So how does a parent make the kind of decisions you claim are their responsibility if they don't have that information?

Also, it's erroneous on your part to assume your situation is applicable to everyone out there and just because something works for you means it has no flaws or shouldn't be reconsidered. I don't agree with everything McElhearn says in his article, but he does make some good points. Your rebuttal is terribly immature and doesn't adequately respond to his better points.

Posted by: Rick Anderson | July 7, 2005 01:37 PM

Read Kirk's article again. He wants all content that he doesn't approve of for his kids to be only accessible by manual URL entry. That's kind of going to kill everything that you relegate to that ghetto, because you'll never be able to browse for it.

Secondly, perfectly define "Explicit". That is, define the word in a way that fully covers every situation that every parent with access to iTMS podcasts would use it. That means that no one anywhere will ever disagree with you.

Then, once you've done that, ponder how long it would take Apple to hire enough people to listen to *every* podcast that is on iTMS or submitted to it, compare it to a perfect definition of explicit, and decide if it gets the label.

Even if this weren't an impossible task, you'd be lucky to only take a year for a podcast to be listed on iTMS.

You can't do this, you cannot even come close. In fact, trying to create some magical definition of "explicit" that Kirk, I, and everyone else agrees on is a fool's errand.

That's the problem. My explicit is not your explicit. The *best* you can do, MAYBE is go by "the seven dirty words". But then, not all of those words have the same implications in every culture, even if we limit this to english. Heck, you can't even do it just in the US alone. Janet Jackso showed that.

So what then? the current system is imperfect, but the least offensive. You rely on the creators of the podcast to decide, and apologize if they mess up.

But I fail to see HOW I'm wrong in not expecting Apple, or anyone else to decide for me what is appropriate or inappropriate for my child. That's my job. No one else's. And I take it seriously. I do maintain control over what he has on his computer, what movies he sees, etc. It's a pain in the ass, but that's part of being a parent.

Kirk wants Apple to somehow magically read his mind, so that their definition of "explicit" matches his. That's just ridiculous. If Kirk doesn't want his kid seeing certain things, or listening to certain things, booyah for him! But why should stuff that *I* or anyone else doesn't find offensive be unbrowseable, and why should anyone else have to jump through hoops just so he doesn't have to do his job as a parent?

Posted by: John C. Welch | July 7, 2005 02:07 PM

Apple could serve its own interests, and those of its users by extending the iTunes Rating star system to let the iTunes community set its own standards for the Podcast content. One of the big issues it faces in positioning itself in the center of the Podcast universe is finding the good content. A natural way of doing this is to extend functionality it already has in iTunes to let users share their ratings with the world.

In addition to the star ratings, Apple should add a movie style rating category [G, PG, R, X] and let users vote on the age-appropriateness of the content. Parental Controls which let the parents determine the rating of the content they want their kids exposed to would give parents a lot more confidence in letting their children use the system. Everyone knows how the movie system works - adapting it to Podcast and even music and later video content would seem to be a good thing to do. By doing this Apple also avoids liability for screening the content themselves.

Posted by: Gibbons Burke | July 7, 2005 02:26 PM

Then the people most active in the community, always a minority, become the arbiters of "what's right" for everyone. Which is a different way of creating the same problem Kirk advocates.

Why not just build good parental controls into the iTunes application and update Mac OS X 10.4's parental controls to work with iTunes? (I say in the application too so that Mac OS X 10.3 users don't get screwed here)

that would solve far more problems. It allows each parent to decide what is appropriate for their child, without deciding for anyone else or having anyone else decide for them. It removes any sort of onus from Apple, and it deals with the real problem of the ratings system, namely that it's a crapshoot at best by not creating one, and allowing the listening audience to do what's best for them.

Yes, it means parents have to screen stuff on their own, but that's their job ANYWAY, so it's a non-issue.

This way, people without kids don't have to have their choices limited or affected by people with kids. Seems to me to be the fairest, and most technologically feasible solution.

Posted by: John C. Welch | July 7, 2005 03:14 PM

Following iPodlounge's editorial, Apple's CEO went on record to say that its podcasting directory should not/will not include pornographic content. See http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=892335&page=2 .

Kirk's editorial made a simple point, which Apple agrees with: pornographic content should not be easily accessible by underage users of iTunes, regardless of whether adults should be entitled to listen to it. The reason for his editorial was simple: at the time it was posted, the podcasts in question were either miscategorized, unlabeled, or both. Since then (and in any case before you wrote your response on July 6), some labels have appeared, some podcasts have disappeared from the directory, and Apple has taken responsibility for remedying the problem Kirk identified.

Speaking for myself: I have no kids, and also have no desire to see my own range of entertainment/information options limited by people who are too lazy to "change the channel." But tagging this as a parental responsibility editorial is missing the point. There's a reason that pornographic magazines are wrapped in covers at major bookstores and put on high shelves (sometimes behind the cashier). No one is trying to prevent you from consuming pornographic content; Kirk was just asking Apple to properly wrap its magazines or make sure that kids didn't snatch them. This was a reasonable suggestion, and one that Apple apparently agreed with.

Posted by: Jeremy Horwitz | July 7, 2005 05:08 PM

Okay, the porn mag example you're using doesn't fly. iTunes doesn't randomly play podcasts as soon as you select podcasts. you have to specifically select a podcast to play it. So that analogy is...suboptimal.

Would you care to explain what rational Kirk used to include a channel that talks about issues of interest to the transgendered community in his example of "pornographic" material?

Or was that an "innocent mistake" because he didn't bother to listen to it. If he had, he might not have included it. Or is anything having to do with transgendered folks inappropriate for kids?

One of Kirk's suggestions wasn't that Apple "label" things but rather that they prevent them from being browsable at all, and instead require manual URL entry to see them. Wait, here's the quote:

Users can subscribe to individual podcasts by adding entering their URLs in a dialog, so those people who want to listen to this type of audio content can do so with no restriction.

Seems to me he's asking for a defacto ban on what he doesn't like.

I find most hardcore right-wing fundamentalist screeds to be quite offensive, and don't want my child seeing them, yet I doubt that any request i have for such content to be labled as explicit will be honored.

I note that Firehouse Radio is billed as "For Mature Audiences" yet has no explicit tag. Hmm, better call Apple. Pod-porn? no label.

Obviously, Apple needs to ban all podcasts from iTunes that they personally haven't listened to to determine the 'explicitness of the content', or at least every podcast that doesn't currently have an explicit tag. Because obviously some are slipping through. Oh sure, we'll gut the selection of podcasts, but as long as we're protecting children, then any means justifies that end, right? You can't rely on the titles, people could lie. No, each one has to be listened to by Apple and then (dis)approved, and appropriately labeled.

Of course, we'll have to disable the manual subscription until we can ensure a way to check the age of the person typing in the URL. because otherwise a child could type in a porn URL. Must protect the kids, Machiavelli was right.

Or, we could admit that this is a fool's errand and provide individual parents with the tools they need to lock down THEIR copy of iTunes in the way they see fit. Adding a white-list feature and controls on it would not be difficult from a technical perspective. But that's work isn't it. That makes the parents have to preview podcasts before they let their kids listen, instead of demanding the rest of the world kowtow to their offspring's needs.

Or maybe you're fine with it because it hasn't affected anything you care about yet.

Posted by: John C. Welch | July 7, 2005 07:39 PM

John,

I'm not going to respond to all your vitriol, because you're really going too far - it is not possible to have a reasonable discussion with your attitude.

Let me just correct an error you made. You said:

It seems that podcasts such as CrossOver, Fetish Flame, Rope Weekly, and GayPorn Talk are just a huge problem because the lack a voluntary tag that marks them as explicit.

I _never_ cited CrossOver, which seems to irk you the most - you've mentioned it in your article and in your latest comment. It appears in a screen shot that shows a few of the podcasts I mentioned. But I never criticized it. I did not criticize any podcasts that are about gay issues, nor trans-gender issues, etc. I only criticized podcasts that are clearly pornography.

Steve Jobs has said that there would be no porn in the podcasts available from iTunes. Apple's not living up to what some of their customers expect. It's that simple.

Now calm down...

Posted by: Kirk McElhearn | July 8, 2005 01:56 AM

I too get so upset when I encounter the point of view of Mr. McElhearn. Protect your own kids and don't expect the rest of the world to dumb itself down waiting for everyone to be 18 or 21

Posted by: Sean | July 8, 2005 08:42 AM

Oh please Kirk...you made the screenshot, not me. You tarred every single podcast in that screen shot. I'm not the only one to point out podcasts that are in the screen shot that you didn't mention.

If you were only talking about specific shots, then why not edit the screenshot to more clearly illustrate your point? It seems to me that you could have easily done that with a more judicious use of cmd-shift-4, or by making your article more clear on the fact that you aren't talking about every podcast in your screen shot.

But you chose not to do that, thereby including all the podcasts in that image in your "OH NOES TEH PRON!!!" commentary. Then, when you encounter comments about that, (and I'm not the only one in that group), you start in with this attitude of "OMG, don't take the screen shot seriously, I only talked about foo, bar, and blah!"

Well Kirk, we can't read your mind. We don't "Know what you mean". If you wish people to get a specific message, then you need to strive for greater clarity in your writing. Don't expect other people to do that work for you.

Secondly, I'm going too far? You're the one demanding Apple not only label, but ban to a manual URL - only ghetto any podcast you don't approve of. Can you perchance give us a list of things you don't like, so that when things start going manual - only, we can all know what to expect? Or are we, along with Apple supposed to "Know what you mean"?

Thirdly...dude, the labeling's hit and miss. The only way for it not to be is for Apple to listen to every single podcast, and review it in a committee that then labels them or bans them.
That won't add more than a month delay to any podcast. Not bad at all in internet time. You talk about "They should label explicit broadcasts better". Okay Kirk, as an exercise, define "Explicit" in a way that will satisfy every single person in the US able to receive a podcast from iTunes. After all, if you want labeling, we should make sure that we all explicitly agree on what we're labeling. Of course, if I was a kid, I'd be cheering on labeling. It saves so much time in finding the smut when it's labeled as such. (You'd think people would learn from Tipper Gore's infamous mistake which led Donny Osmond to publicly say that he should have included a smut track on his album, as warning labels = increased sales. 'Round and 'round the historical ignorance merry-go-round we go)

You know, if you had said, "Apple should have given us parental controls in iTunes, so that parents can better manage what their kids see according to their own standards", that would have been a great point. I'm still surprised that Apple didn't, it would have avoided a lot of problems.

But you don't want that, probably because it would make you have to do the work. You want Apple to label, ban, and ghettoize whatever you think is bad for your kids so that you don't have to do any work. Of course, since there's no features built into iTunes that allows you to use labels, you'll get...no functional benefit, barring a complete ban of all podcasts you don't approve of. But you'll be able to point at the labels and tell your children in a stern voice, "You can't download those". That'll stop them. Yep, no problems there.

And as far as "All my vitriol" goes...well, one would think that a post that starts out "Okay kids, now I'm pissed" is probably not going to be a Cronkite-like analysis of your article. I'm kind of thinking the first paragraph's a clue here.

But it lets you avoid the dubious points you made like confusing "young demographic" with "Underage minors". You may want to go back and review the concept of the subset on that one. Or how everything that's not a clinical discussion of sex is suddenly pornography. So I guess you agree with the FCC allowing Oprah to devote a show to oral-anal sex, aka "Rimjobs" and "Tossing Salad", but fining Howard Stern when he has the same content. Or your "Apple should warn us about every podcast that may offend us" schtick. Like I said, when you come up with a universal definition of explicit, you let me know and we'll talk.

But my vitriol is far less offensive than you demanding that Apple turn iTunes podcasts into pabulum so you don't have to do the work of keeping an eye on your kids. If you're going to try to force your views on me, and make me have to jump through hoops so that your kids can wander iTunes sans supervision so that you can do whatever you consider more worthy of your time, then I'm going to call you on it, and I'm not going to feel any need to soft-pedal what I'm saying. I'm not sorry you don't like it, and I'm not sorry as to how I chose to say it. Don't like it? There's other places on the internet you can go.

Posted by: John C. Welch | July 8, 2005 09:24 AM

One of the problem with blogs, is you need to come up with opinions to make blog posts with. It's tempting if you are the first one to notice a nitpicky thing like this, to promote it into a full blown activist opinion and use it as material for your blog.

There's no telling how sincere this is. I'm pretty sure it's exaggerated outrage. That's what we got: Supply Side Opinions

Posted by: suv man | July 8, 2005 01:30 PM

I can't speak for Kirk, but as for me, there's little exaggeration in either the content or the tone.

Posted by: John C. Welch | July 8, 2005 01:55 PM

Damned straight. Great post. It's nice to see a parent approach this from the angle that it is your right as a parent to make the decisions about what your kid can and can't see.

Posted by: Sage | July 8, 2005 05:10 PM

An interesting problem is parents who don't have the technical expertise to keep up with their kids. Maybe you shouldn't let your child full empowerment in areas you can't manage to supervise, ok? You could perhaps UNPLUG THE DAMN INTERNET CABLE... if that's not too technical.

And what, Apple should label their podcasts? How about a "boring" label or a "unrepentently Christian" label. Or is that a redundancy? How about an "offensive to intelligent people" label?

Posted by: Locke | July 8, 2005 06:01 PM

Wow John, decided you missed all the comments that you got from the Lucas thread? :)

Posted by: W. Ian Blanton | July 8, 2005 07:01 PM

BTW, it should go without saying that I agree with you, John, but I'm saying it anyways.

I mean, I can dig the "Hey Apple, can we get the 'Explicit' tag on these?" angle. I'm all for an aid for some 'rents to try and filter.

I think the fact that Kirk has had to clarify his article like 6 times in the comments section, pretty much tell you how well done the article was.

The big kicker is that what's "Explicit" for you, ain't for me. (or vicey versey) My 7 year old listens to and plays games that are rated well above her age, in fact, some that her older cousins can't play. It because I know what her squick factor is pretty well. You know your son's.

Stuff like "Explicit" tags are, and can only be _aids_ to a parent, you can have a completely "clean" sounding song that is amazingly raunchy.

Me? I have very few things that my daughter has watched that I haven't, and those things are usually episodes of shows that I have come to trust.

And in the end you end up with a weird kid who loves the song "The Envoy". :)

Posted by: W. Ian Blanton | July 8, 2005 08:18 PM

We have three computers in the house. One is in my office, off limit to short people, the other in the living room and my old eMac is in the kitchen. They are all connected. (You know, so we can get to the Intarweb). The other day I was setting the table and my six year old was looking at a Brainpop movie about puberty. I suggested he might prefer their dinosaur or volcano selection. No biggie. Then, today, he is looking at a cartoon in which a squirrel (who is a bartender) is asking his customer if he "wants to order, or did he just come in for a mindfuck" (Can I say fuck here, John?).

So Mommy streaked across the kitchen and killed that site. He asked why--I said that is not a kid site. End of story. I know how good filters and Nanny software are-- as good as the first time the kid tries to get around them.

A little combo I call trust, good sense, and instilling values you want them to hold fast to.

But then, maybe I'm weird. I never talked baby-talk to my kids either "Who's a widdle wubby-dubby...." ick.

Instead of dumbing down, what-say we teach our kids to think-- or HEY!! What about just Teach our kids....full stop.

Lisa

Posted by: Beseel | July 8, 2005 11:31 PM

John, I have to admit, your reactionary screed does seem a little extreme. Let me address a few points specifically:

“That's called ‘hypocrisy’ because you obviously don't want anything you don't like to be available with any kind of convenience.”

There is a marked difference between censorship and inconvenience. Specifically, there is not a right for everyone to have easy access to anything that they perceive as appropriate. You use words like “ghetto” or “defacto ban,” since you can’t actually say that those podcasts were banned…because they weren’t. So you have to type a URL to subscribe to a podcast…so what? We live in a society where access to certain things is limited in certain ways. We generally don’t have strip clubs across the street from schools. The pornographic magazines are not displayed on the lower shelf to be within easy grasp. You have to show your ID before getting into a bar. These are all accepted forms of inconvenience that we as a society have established to somewhat limit access to various forms of entertainment that we think are not appropriate for younger children. Compared to driving to the seedy side of town to visit a strip club, pardon me if I’m not welling up with sympathy over you having to copy and paste a URL.

“Of course, if it's not listed, then how is anyone to know it's there?”

Well now, this is a completely valid point, of course. I mean, it’s not like there is an easy way for someone to find podcasts on the internet. A person couldn’t just enter “podcast” and the subject of their choice into, say, a search engine, in order to find a podcast on the subject they’re interested in. That would be just ludicrous.

“Okay Kirk, as an exercise, define ‘Explicit’ in a way that will satisfy every single person in the US able to receive a podcast from iTunes.”

Yet amazingly, and apparently against all logic, Apple specifically defines “Explicit” for numerous tracks within iTunes! And while we’re on the subject, somehow the MPAA can determine what movies are appropriate for my 13-year-old! It’s uncanny!

So really, how do Apple and the MPAA manage such a miraculous feat?? Do they really poll every single person in the U.S.? Have they talked to my 13-year-old to determine what is appropriate and what he might not really be ready for? Or maybe, just maybe, is it possible that they use some sort of general definition of the word “Explicit” that is good enough for most people, without having to specifically satisfy every single person’s exact definition of the word?

See, this is where your argument gets disingenuous. Because really, honestly, you know that we already have ratings systems, and you know that these are not universally agreed upon by every single person in the U.S. You know this, and yet you persist in making these pointless arguments about, “How are you going to define this word for everyone in the U.S. specifically?” So either you are purposely ignoring facts just to support your case, or you really are that ignorant. Either way, it doesn’t benefit your argument.

So in short, neither Apple nor anyone else has a responsibility to make your access to certain podcasts just as easy as your access to every other podcast. We as a society have generally restricted access to material that we think might be appropriate for younger children. Yes, groups do find ways to rate content without asking everyone specifically for their opinion. And even if you are “inconvenienced,” that inconvenience consists solely of having to cut and paste a URL instead of clicking a “subscribe” button. Given how easy it is to access any kind of information on the internet, pardon me if I’m not more sympathetic to your “defacto ban,” which really isn’t any kind of ban at all.

Andy.

Posted by: Andy | July 9, 2005 04:28 AM

In response to Bynkii's "Parent your own kids!" blog post Andy says, "somehow the MPAA can determine what movies are appropriate or my 13-year-old! It’s uncanny!"

Sure turn your kid's over to the MPAA. That'll really show that Bynkii fellow.

"So in short, neither Apple nor anyone else has a responsibility to make your access to certain podcasts just as easy as your access to every other podcast."

But they have a responsibility to do what you should be doing... previewing the content?

"We as a society have generally restricted access to material that we think might [not] be appropriate for younger children."

Why? Because kids are very likely to try to get a hold of these things. And when do they get these things and hurt themselves and others? When the adults that should be responsible for them don't honor that responsibility.

How effective are those rules and limitations when parents don't take responsibility for their kids? Not very.

Again, Parent your own kids.

Your kids are worth your attention, and having an adult complex society is worth everyone's attention.

Posted by: arcsine | July 9, 2005 06:14 AM

“That's called ‘hypocrisy’ because you obviously don't want anything you don't like to be available with any kind of convenience.”

Right, a de facto ban. Let's examine that. de facto:
de fac·to adv
in fact, whether with a legal right or not

adj
acting or existing in fact but without legal sanction

It's that adjective form I'm talking about. Who defines what gets relegated to the URL only ghetto? Not the listeners. No, that would be too easy. Instead it's a group of people I don't know, and I have no input on. When you speak of governmental limitations, you conveniently ignore the fact that that the citizens affected by such limitations have clear avenues with which to provide input, or even change on those limitations. A private company has no requirements whatsover to provide those avenues. So you're stuck with whatever Apple's censorship committee decides on. (Yes, censorship. They decide what is and is not on iTMS. That's censorship. In this case it's legal, but it's still censorship) As well, thanks to various "Government in the Sunshine" laws, citizens have the ability to gather information related to such decisions, such as meeting minutes, etc. There's no such ability with a private corporation. So who decides on what is banned from iTMS? I don't know, and neither do you. What standards are they using? I don't know and neither do you. What tools do you have in iTunes to prevent your kids from downloading podcasts you don't find appropriate? None. What about people who find things other than sex and profanity inappropriate? Well, they don't get any labels. So your fine accepted limitations are only valid if you don't like profanity and sex. I guess people with other moral objections to content don't count.

“Okay Kirk, as an exercise, define ‘Explicit’ in a way that will satisfy every single person in the US able to receive a podcast from iTunes.”

Yes, and so thanks to that, my son is protected from any accidental viewing of a male penis regardless of context or situation, but there's no problem showing someone getting shot between the eys. Seems like that's a completely failed system right there, and hey, that makes it a rather poor analogy.

And your statement: somehow the MPAA can determine what movies are appropriate for my 13-year-old! shows a typical yet ignorant opinion of what the MPAA ratings are even for. From the MPAA information page on ratings:

The basic mission of the rating system is a simple one: to offer to parents some advance information about movies so that parents can decide what movies they want their children to see or not to see.

The MPAA doesn't decide what's appropriate for your son Andy. They voluntarily rate the films so that you can more easily decide, but the ratings are not going to guarantee that every film with a PG-13 or 'nicer' is appropriate for your son. That's your job, and at the end of the day, the only way to do that is to do a little work on your own. The MPAA doesn't do that work for you, and if you think they do, then you're a part of the reason why they're so ineffectual even now, except as a way to target specific audiences so you make the most money.

And what happens when something slips by? Because two minutes on iTMS will show you that. Wait, I'll tell you. The reaction won't be reasonable, Janet Jackson showed that. It will involve screaming and more cries for Apple to DO SOMETHING to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. Spiral down, spiral down.

What happens when it gets applied without any sort of thought whatsoever. The habit iTMS has of forcing the word "dick" to be spelled as "d**K", regardless of context very neatly illustrates how bad that system is. iTMS has gotten a little better, but even now..."D**k's boogie"...by an artist named "Dick Amberman". Wow, great system....go team. I guess that's a great message for all kids named "Dick"...their name is unfit for decent company.

And those rating systems are utter crap, and effectively useless. The various media companies slice scenes by seconds to get the desired rating, then just release them unrated on DVD, thereby bypassing the MPAA in it's entirety. Ratings are a money issue, not a moral one, ask the movie companies about the income difference between 'R' and 'NC-17' sometime. I'm not ignoring the idiocy of the MPAA in my arguments, in fact, the glorious failure that is the ratings system illustrates my point precisely. They create the illusion of doing something, but if you talk to theater workers, at the end of the day, they do no good whatsoever, as evidenced by the large numbers of young kids in the theater for "Shaun of the dead" sans parents. If you get anything worse than an 'R' for your film, your chances of decent distribution approach zero. Thanks for the oppourtunity to point that out, by the way.

Actually, it is, whether you like to call it that or not. If you have easy access to podcasts on iTunes, what's the incentive to look for content that you don't know exists? While your point of "Just use the internet to find podcasts" seems reasonable, the word "Podcast" gets you over nine million hits, and the first page has more to do with ways to download podcasts than actually getting them. So then you have to run multiple searches. In the meantime iTunes makes it far easier to find content. What do you think the difference in listenership of podcasts not on iTunes is vs. podcasts on iTunes? It's going be a significant number over time. It's not the subscription part that's hard, but the location barrier that causes the problem. Location is, as someone once said, everything.

We all talk about how radio sucks, yet radio airplay is still critical to a band being successful on a wide scale. What's the difference in box office figures of a film that gets picked up by the AMC and Regal cinema chains vs. one that only shows in art houses in a handful of cities.

So obviously, being able to easily find things is critical, and contrary to your belief, not everyone uses Google. In fact, to quite a few million people, if it's not on AOL, it's not on the internet. I can tell you that since iTMS, I have to REALLY want to find music if it's not on iTMS, and I can make Google dance. If location doesn't matter, then what's on iTMS or not wouldn't matter, and no one would care if it was explicit. The fact that this argument is even happening negates that entire theory of yours. By forcing content judged by unknown people and unknown criteria, to be only accessible by manual URL entry you create a ghetto. The effect of certain MPAA ratings creates ghettos.

Note that this ghettoizing does diddly-squat to actually keep inappropriate content out of the hands of your kids. It only gives the appearance of "doing something". I find it interesting that so far, only the folks agreeing with me have wondered why Apple didn't put better tools for parental control into iTunes. I guess that's the way to tell the difference between people interested in tools that are really effective vs. people who just want the appearance of "doing something" so they don't have to do any actual work on their own.

Posted by: John C. Welch | July 9, 2005 09:43 AM

John, this response may be a little tardy, but I did want to respond to your very thorough comment.

First, and most importantly, you and Arcsine both make the fallacious assumption that, because I advocate some sort of external ratings guidelines for certain media, I am somehow implying that parents should not be involved in the process of guiding their kids’ interests. One does not necessarily follow from the other, and we could discuss this topic much more easily if you would stop assuming that “provide content guidelines” is equivalent to “raise my kids for me.” It’s not an either-or situation. That basically addresses all of Arcsine’s points. Now, on to yours…

“Right, a de facto ban. Let's examine that. de facto:
de fac·to adj
acting or existing in fact but without legal sanction

It's that adjective form I'm talking about.”

And the adjective form is clearly false in this case. The “legal sanction” is Apple, and by providing the means to enter URLs, they are giving that legal sanction to any podcast. If they took out that feature, and only allowed you to subscribe to podcasts that are in the directory, then you might have a point. As it stands, however, there is no ban on these podcasts, de facto or otherwise.

“Who defines what gets relegated to the URL only ghetto? Not the listeners. No, that would be too easy. Instead it's a group of people I don't know, and I have no input on.”

Again, you use terms like “URL only ghetto” to make it sound like something nefarious is going on here. If you said, “Who defines what podcasts are listed in Apple’s directory,” then the answer is obviously Apple, without the sinister implications.

“When you speak of governmental limitations…”

Whoa whoa whoa…stop right there. A government limiting access to certain content is in no way the same as a company making it slightly less convenient to access certain content.

“So you're stuck with whatever Apple's censorship committee decides on. (Yes, censorship. They decide what is and is not on iTMS. That's censorship. In this case it's legal, but it's still censorship)”

Please look up the definition of censorship. What Apple is doing doesn’t even come close. Even if you somehow assume that Apple has a responsibility to allow any podcasts (which they don’t), Apple does provide a means by which users can access any podcasts that they want, through the URL mechanism. It is slightly less convenient than having that podcast listed in the directory, but it is hardly censorship.

“So who decides on what is banned from iTMS?”

No podcast is banned. There is a difference between having a podcast not listed in the iTunes Music Store, and having a podcast prohibited from being listened to.

“What tools do you have in iTunes to prevent your kids from downloading podcasts you don't find appropriate? None.”

Ah, that’s where you’re wrong! I have my own involvement with my children to determine what I feel is or is not appropriate for them to download. And theoretically, with podcast ratings, that would be an additional data point to help guide my research.

“What about people who find things other than sex and profanity inappropriate? Well, they don't get any labels.”

You are correct that the “explicit” tag can not cover every possible interpretation of what is appropriate or not. Neither can the MPAA ratings, for that matter. So does that mean that ratings should be abandoned altogether? Of course not. It just means that it is one imperfect data point in an imperfect system.

“I guess people with other moral objections to content don't count.”

Those people are free to limit access for their kids based on whatever criteria they deem important. But ratings based on sex and profanity (and violence, for that matter) are commonly used throughout society, even though they don’t perfectly match any one person’s moral values.

“Yes, and so thanks to that, my son is protected from any accidental viewing of a male penis regardless of context or situation, but there's no problem showing someone getting shot between the eys. Seems like that's a completely failed system right there, and hey, that makes it a rather poor analogy.”

The MPAA ratings system is a guideline, nothing more. If you know that you don’t want your kids to view full frontal nudity, then it is useful. If you don’t want your kids to see someone being shot between the eyes, then you can be fairly certain that any PG or G movie should be okay for them. But as I have said repeatedly, no ratings system is perfect. It’s only a “poor analogy” if you assume that there exists some perfect ratings system that will satisfy everyone’s moral beliefs. I hate to burst your bubble, but there is no such system. But that doesn’t mean that we abandon ratings altogether!

“And your statement: somehow the MPAA can determine what movies are appropriate for my 13-year-old! shows a typical yet ignorant opinion of what the MPAA ratings are even for. From the MPAA information page on ratings:

The basic mission of the rating system is a simple one: to offer to parents some advance information about movies so that parents can decide what movies they want their children to see or not to see.

Thank you. That is exactly the point that I was trying to make. You throw out your little comment, “Okay Kirk, as an exercise, define ‘Explicit’ in a way that will satisfy every single person in the US able to receive a podcast from iTunes,” as if you have proven some grand point that ratings can’t be applied equally for everyone, therefore they should not be allowed. I make the statement that the MPAA defines what is appropriate, causing you to respond that the ratings are a guideline to help parents, but not an absolute declaration of what is appropriate for your child. Thus, by your own statements, it is clear that a podcast ratings system does not have to “satisfy every single person in the U.S.,” as you originally said, but is simply there “so that you can more easily decide” what is appropriate. I couldn’t agree with you more.

“That's your job, and at the end of the day, the only way to do that is to do a little work on your own. The MPAA doesn't do that work for you, and if you think they do, then you're a part of the reason why they're so ineffectual even now, except as a way to target specific audiences so you make the most money.”

No, of course I don’t abdicate responsibility to the MPAA. However, the MPAA ratings are a helpful tool, just as a podcast ratings system would be.

“And what happens when something slips by? Because two minutes on iTMS will show you that. Wait, I'll tell you. The reaction won't be reasonable, Janet Jackson showed that. It will involve screaming and more cries for Apple to DO SOMETHING to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. Spiral down, spiral down.”

Oh, I agree completely! That’s why there has been a huge outcry against Apple already, since “two minutes on iTMS will show you” that things slip through.

…Oh, wait…you mean there HASN’T already been “screaming and more cries for Apple to DO SOMETHING to PROTECT THE CHILDREN”??? Kind of takes the wind out of your argument, doesn’t it? “There will be horrible cries against Apple”…except there haven’t been.

“What happens when it gets applied without any sort of thought whatsoever.”

Yep, the system isn’t perfect. Is this supposed to be news to anyone?

“And those rating systems are utter crap, and effectively useless. The various media companies slice scenes by seconds to get the desired rating, then just release them unrated on DVD, thereby bypassing the MPAA in it's entirety.”

Right…because a DVD with “UNRATED!” plastered across the cover isn’t going to tip off any parents.

“They create the illusion of doing something, but if you talk to theater workers, at the end of the day, they do no good whatsoever, as evidenced by the large numbers of young kids in the theater for "Shaun of the dead" sans parents.”

Just because a system doesn’t work perfectly for all children, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work at all. Parents also have to be involved, which sadly is part of the reason why there were probably so many kids in the theater that day. So now, do you think that removing the ratings system would result in MORE kids in the theater, or FEWER?

“Actually, it is, whether you like to call it that or not. If you have easy access to podcasts on iTunes, what's the incentive to look for content that you don't know exists?”

By your definition, my local bookstore bans books that they don’t keep in stock. I mean, if I have a store full of all those books, what’s the incentive to special-order a book that I don’t know exists? For that matter, what incentive is there for me to look through the bookshelves, when I have a table full of “Featured New Releases” near the entrance? My bookstore is banning all those other books, by not putting them right at the entrance!

“What do you think the difference in listenership of podcasts not on iTunes is vs. podcasts on iTunes?”

What do you think the difference in viewership is of movies that are released by a major studio, vs. movies not picked up by any studio? Therefore, any movie studio that doesn’t distribute my movie is forcing a de facto ban on it. Censorship!

“What's the difference in box office figures of a film that gets picked up by the AMC and Regal cinema chains vs. one that only shows in art houses in a handful of cities.”

Siginificant. Doesn’t mean that AMC is banning or censoring any movies that it doesn’t show.

“So obviously, being able to easily find things is critical, and contrary to your belief, not everyone uses Google. In fact, to quite a few million people, if it's not on AOL, it's not on the internet. I can tell you that since iTMS, I have to REALLY want to find music if it's not on iTMS, and I can make Google dance. If location doesn't matter, then what's on iTMS or not wouldn't matter, and no one would care if it was explicit. The fact that this argument is even happening negates that entire theory of yours. By forcing content judged by unknown people and unknown criteria, to be only accessible by manual URL entry you create a ghetto. The effect of certain MPAA ratings creates ghettos.

Note that this ghettoizing does diddly-squat to actually keep inappropriate content out of the hands of your kids.”

Does anybody else see the inherent contradiction in these two paragraphs?? So you’re saying that, by not listing certain titles on the iTunes Music Store, Apple is significantly decreasing the number of people who have access to that content…except at the same time, it does absolutely nothing to keep that content out of the hands of kids.” So really, which is it? Does leaving a podcast off of iTunes affect accessibility, or doesn’t it? If YOU can’t easily find the content (and you “can make Google dance”), then how are these kids somehow able to find the content just as easily??

“I find it interesting that so far, only the folks agreeing with me have wondered why Apple didn't put better tools for parental control into iTunes. I guess that's the way to tell the difference between people interested in tools that are really effective vs. people who just want the appearance of ‘doing something’ so they don't have to do any actual work on their own.”

Ah, I see…so if you can’t have tools that are really effective, the second-best option is to not have any tools at all? Really, your logic is impeccable.

Still, your core argument is essentially flawed: If Apple removes certain podcasts from iTunes, then:

1) Those podcasts are “de facto banned,” Apple is committing “censorship” by restricting them to the “URL ghetto,” and there is going to be a “significant” difference in listenership, because many people won’t even know where to find them.

2) At the same time, “this ghettoizing does diddly-squat to actually keep inappropriate content out of the hands of your kids” because ratings “do no good whatsoever.”

3) Ratings are a “failed system” because they do not account for every single person’s personal tastes regarding what is appropriate.

4) However, ratings are also there “so that you can more easily decide” what is appropriate for your children, and requires you “to do a little work on your own.”

So you’re saying that a ratings system is there to help the parent, not to be a perfect guideline…but shouldn’t be implemented because it won’t perfectly match everyone’s morals.

And banning certain podcasts will have absolutely no effect on limiting access to children…except that parents will be almost completely unable to access that very same content, as Apple will effectively be banning it.

You may want to rethink your arguments.

Posted by: Andy | July 12, 2005 07:14 PM

But if Apple is summarily banning things based on unknown criteria because they're getting bitched at to "DO SOMETHING" then I have no input whatsoever. It's been taken from my hands entirely.

“Right, a de facto ban. Let's examine that. de facto:
de fac·to adj
acting or existing in fact but without legal sanction

It's that adjective form I'm talking about.”

Okay...here's one. Only subscribe to Podcasts that you must enter manually. No browsing in iTunes. Tell me how many you're going to casually listen to when the ability to browse them is taken away.

“Who defines what gets relegated to the URL only ghetto? Not the listeners. No, that would be too easy. Instead it's a group of people I don't know, and I have no input on.”

Because that's what it is. A ghetto: "an area of a city lived in by a minority group, especially a run-down and densely populated area lived in by a group that experiences discrimination

By forcing podcasts that are "pornographic" or "Explicit" to a URL only status, they're relegated to a ghetto.

“When you speak of governmental limitations…”

Whoa whoa whoa…stop right there. A government limiting access to certain content is in no way the same as a company making it slightly less convenient to access certain content.

You entirely missed my point that when the government does such things, the entire process is open to examination and comment by the citizens. That was my point about governmental limitations.

cen·sor·ship n
1. the suppression of all or part of a publication, play, or film considered offensive or a threat to security
2. the suppression or attempted suppression of something regarded as objectionable
3. the office, authority, or term of an ancient Roman censor
4. the suppression of potentially harmful memories, ideas, or desires from the conscious mind

Seems to me that there's no requirement that the agency doing the censoring be a government agency. Any other definitions you need help with?

“So who decides on what is banned from iTMS?”

No podcast is banned. There is a difference between having a podcast not listed in the iTunes Music Store, and having a podcast prohibited from being listened to.

Um...podcasts defined as pornographic are not allowed in iTunes. That's banned. They are banned from being listed. We're talking about what gets listed in iTunes, since i've already clearly stated that I object to summarily banning content from being browseable in iTunes when there's no way to determine what standards are being used.

“What tools do you have in iTunes to prevent your kids from downloading podcasts you don't find appropriate? None.”

Yet somehow, MY desire to be in charge of what my kids see, or don't see is wrong. Asking that Apple provide *better* tools at the client end is wrong. But it's okay to have whatever content someone else decides is inappropriate unavailable. It's okay to have content listed as explicit without me even having the CHANCE to decide on my own by my own standards. But me saying, "Hey, stop deciding for me, let me handle this according to my own situation" is just completely beyond the pale, even though that's the answer you want too? Here's a word for you to look up...Hypocrisy

“What about people who find things other than sex and profanity inappropriate? Well, they don't get any labels.”

Sure it does. It's absolutely useless unless you only find sex and profanity to be "bad". It's worse than worthless because it pretends to be guidance, when in reality it's only a locator for bad words and sex. Every teenager in america loves those ratings. Saves time.

“I guess people with other moral objections to content don't count.”

But they don't get the benefit of Apple's benevolent eye. So far, the only qualifications Apple cops to is sex and profanity. Evidently, as long as the things YOU have a problem with are hidden away and labled, the fact that the system is useless to others is okay, because your problems are taken care of. How handy for you.

Why not? It's not like they're that useful. I never use them. My son wants to see a movie, I talk to others who have seen it, check out clips, and if i don't like the answer i'm' getting, I'll watch it without him so I can make an informed decision. If you bother to think for yourself, you don't need the MPAA.

The basic mission of the rating system is a simple one: to offer to parents some advance information about movies so that parents can decide what movies they want their children to see or not to see.

That's not what you said. You said that the MPAA is able to determine what is appropriate for your son without knowing you. I Pointed out that your statement showed complete ignorance of how the MPAA works. That's it. If every parent would do their job, the MPAA would have no reason for existence. It's only because parents like you demand that someone else tell them what is safe for their children that idiocy like the MPAA survives. Then when you find that the MPAA isn't foolproof, the reaction is NEVER "Wow, I should start checking this stuff out on my own". Instead its "WE NEED MORE RATINGS, YOU'RE MISLEADING US!!".

No, of course I don’t abdicate responsibility to the MPAA. However, the MPAA ratings are a helpful tool, just as a podcast ratings system would be.

Really? So every movie that's PG-13 or lighter is automatically appropriate for your son?

Oh, I agree completely! That’s why there has been a huge outcry against Apple already, since “two minutes on iTMS will show you” that things slip through.

Searching for Pornography on iTunes in google gets me 58,000+ hits. I'd say it's generating a ton of attention, along with Kirk's original article

“What happens when it gets applied without any sort of thought whatsoever.”

Yep, the system isn’t perfect. Is this supposed to be news to anyone?

Yet you happily let such systems tell you what's okay for your kid to watch and listen to. Here's another word...Abdication.

Right…because a DVD with “UNRATED!” plastered across the cover isn’t going to tip off any parents.

Snerk...talk to a video store worker about how much good that does, and how often they get yelled at for "letting my poor children rent filth". Seems to me that a very large number of parents are not just letting others parent their kids for them, but DEMANDING that others parent their kids for them. So much for ratings being worth a crap.

No change at all. THe parents who do their jobs would be utterly unaffected by it, since they don't let the MPAA do their jobs NOW. The parents who aren't doing their jobs at all aren't suddenly going to wake up and do their jobs better. But it's not like there aren't constant screams and crying about "the inadequacy of the ratings system." The recent flap about GTA: San Andreas shows that no matter how complicated you make a ratings system, it's never going to be adequate, or even worthwhile.

“Actually, it is, whether you like to call it that or not. If you have easy access to podcasts on iTunes, what's the incentive to look for content that you don't know exists?”

By your definition, my local bookstore bans books that they don’t keep in stock. I mean, if I have a store full of all those books, what’s the incentive to special-order a book that I don’t know exists? For that matter, what incentive is there for me to look through the bookshelves, when I have a table full of “Featured New Releases” near the entrance? My bookstore is banning all those other books, by not putting them right at the entrance!

You should actually try listening to yourself...you just proved my point. If you only know about what the bookstore has, then why would you even know TO special order something? Care to compare sales of books that are prominently displayed to books you can ONLY special order? Fine, I'll take the next harry potter book, you can compare it to any special order only book you want. Let's compare sales figures starting 16 July through 31 July.

“What do you think the difference in listenership of podcasts not on iTunes is vs. podcasts on iTunes?”

If you talk to a lot of independent filmmakers, they'll call it that. If you make a movie that the major distributors don't like, you have almost no chance of getting it seen by a wide audience. Sometimes, you're lucky to get it into more than one city. Why do you think things like Sundance started?

“What's the difference in box office figures of a film that gets picked up by the AMC and Regal cinema chains vs. one that only shows in art houses in a handful of cities.”

Siginificant. Doesn’t mean that AMC is banning or censoring any movies that it doesn’t show.

Actually, if you bother to look at the definition of censorship, that's precisely what they are doing. Thanks again for proving my point. You really make this too easy.

Note that this ghettoizing does diddly-squat to actually keep inappropriate content out of the hands of your kids.”

Nice dodging of the point, you're quite agile that way, but again, you fail. What I said was that if it's not on iTunes, then the chances of a given podcast getting a wide listnership amongst iTunes users is very difficult. BUT, if you somehow think that relegating a podcast to the URL - only ghetto is going to keep it out of the hands of kids that really want it, you're delusional. I find that underestimating the intelligence, cleverness, and determination of a kid to get something they want is a very silly mistake to make. It doesn't PREVENT kids from getting to porn podcasts in any way shape or form, it just gives them a minor speedbump to get over. Speedbump != wall. The only thing it does is guarantee that the casual browser will never get much of a chance to make up their own mind.

Ah, I see…so if you can’t have tools that are really effective, the second-best option is to not have any tools at all? Really, your logic is impeccable.

No, not at all. You conveniently ignore my point that Apple should put better controls into iTunes itself so that parents can decide for themselves what is appropriate, rather than trying to decide for them, an operation that is doomed to failure.

Still, your core argument is essentially flawed: If Apple removes certain podcasts from iTunes, then:

Yep.

2) At the same time, “this ghettoizing does diddly-squat to actually keep inappropriate content out of the hands of your kids” because ratings “do no good whatsoever.”

Because they don't. Does the MPAA completely prevent kids under 17 from seeing an R-rated movie without a parent or guardian? No, not even close. It provides what is a minor challenge at best. It's a speedbump, not the wall you seem to have convinced yourself it is.

3) Ratings are a “failed system” because they do not account for every single person’s personal tastes regarding what is appropriate.

Rather, they fail because they attempt to extrapolate the opinion of a very small group of people over a group of people that numbers over 300 million. "Statistically insignificant and useless" doesn't even begin to describe this. If you tried to say that because you found ten people who didn't like Macs meant that all Macs are crap, you'd be laughed out of the building. Yet, you seem happy to apply an even WORSE ratio as a tool for telling you what's safe for your child and every other child in the country.

4) However, ratings are also there “so that you can more easily decide” what is appropriate for your children, and requires you “to do a little work on your own.”

So you’re saying that a ratings system is there to help the parent, not to be a perfect guideline…but shouldn’t be implemented because it won’t perfectly match everyone’s morals.

No, that's what the MPAA says. I say they're utterly useless crap that only exists so that lazy parents don't have to spend any effort deciding what their kids can see. I'm not willing to allow the MPAA to do my thinking, so I don't need them. You, and far too many others, evidently have better things to do with your time.

It will have no effect on preventing kids from getting inappropriate content, and since, as i've shown, the tags are pretty much unreliable, they're not even able to do a good job of notification. So they fail on all accounts. Parents being too stupid to find stuff is your claim. I said that for people who are using iTunes as a browsing mechanism, forcing all "inappropriate" content to a URL only ghetto is a de facto ban, because, since casual browsers will have no idea that a given podcast even exists, they'll not know to look for it.

You may want to rethink your arguments.

You may want to try reading what I actually said as opposed to what you've decided I said.

Posted by: John C. Welch | July 12, 2005 08:31 PM

Ratings systems "allow" kids to watch partially clad women in scenes of violence, but not love scenes.

Unfettered, unmonitored, unrestricted access to everything all the time is the problem here. No moralizing or demonizing is going to alter that.

I don't know, maybe I'm too Canadian. But there is stuff on "Family Channel" I don't let my kids watch. Do I squawk to the network/my satellite provider/ Disney and affiliates? No-- I turn off the frikken' TV-- or at least change the channel.

I don't get it, not even a little bit. Your job, as a parent, is to keep them safe. Part of that involves teaching them to use discernment and good sense so that they self-monitor, when necessary.

Lock-out channels and hide your liquor and I guarantee your kids will be having a drunken pay-per view extravaganza the next time you are out of town.

Disagree with Bynkii all you like about the fine points of his argument and his *tone*, but he's still right--see the title of his piece-- "Parent your own kids!".

Lisa

Posted by: Beseel | July 12, 2005 11:20 PM

we could discuss this topic much more easily if you would stop assuming that “provide content guidelines” is equivalent to “raise my kids for me.” It’s not an either-or situation.

You may want to reread this point, since you seem to ignore it for the rest of your response.

But if Apple is summarily banning things based on unknown criteria because they're getting bitched at to "DO SOMETHING" then I have no input whatsoever. It's been taken from my hands entirely.

1) “Selection” is not equivalent to “banning.” A bookstore carries a limited number of books, but that doesn’t mean that they are banning every other book; it simply means that they do not carry them. Similarly, the podcast directory in the iTunes Music Store is only a subset of all podcasts that are available. If Apple wanted to, they could restrict iTunes and the iPod to only those podcasts listed in the music store, and then you might have an argument that Apple is banning podcasts (although even that is a shaky argument, since anyone can put a podcast in MP3 form, which you can then put on an iPod). However, Apple does not do that, so even that point is moot. Apple enables you to set up any podcast you want, and use it both in iTunes and the iPod. Therefore, you can not argue that they are banning anything.

2) Apple is not required to give you any input on what content is visible in the iTunes Music Store. Why should they?

As it stands, however, there is no ban on these podcasts, de facto or otherwise.

Okay...here's one. Only subscribe to Podcasts that you must enter manually. No browsing in iTunes. Tell me how many you're going to casually listen to when the ability to browse them is taken away.

I must have missed where “banning” is defined as “taking away the ability to casually access something.” That’s because your definition of a “ban” does not apply here. And besides, there is nothing keeping anyone from setting up their own web page with a directory of podcasts that you can browse. Again, one bookstore can’t ban a book if another store freely carries it. It’s only banned if no one can carry it.

By forcing podcasts that are "pornographic" or "Explicit" to a URL only status, they're relegated to a ghetto.

If by “ghetto” you mean “the subset of content that Apple doesn’t list,” then I would agree. How horrible of Apple! They create a hardware platform, a music device, a free application that allows people to freely subscribe to any published podcast…but they have the gall to select which broadcasts they feature on their site!

You entirely missed my point that when the government does such things, the entire process is open to examination and comment by the citizens. That was my point about governmental limitations.

And you entirely missed my point that the government is completely different from a corporation.

Seems to me that there's no requirement that the agency doing the censoring be a government agency. Any other definitions you need help with?

Being a government agency has nothing to do with it. If Apple wanted to suppress these broadcasts, they could simply take out the ability to manually enter the URL of a podcast that you want to subscribe to. They don’t. They are not censoring anything. Unless you can find a definition of “censorship” that defines it as “making it slightly less convenient to access,” your claim does not hold water.

No podcast is banned. There is a difference between having a podcast not listed in the iTunes Music Store, and having a podcast prohibited from being listened to.

Um...podcasts defined as pornographic are not allowed in iTunes. That's banned. They are banned from being listed.

1) Yes, they are allowed in iTunes! You can enter in the URL, then iTunes will automatically download the podcast so you can listen to it to your heart’s content. Yet somehow, by your logic, “providing an application that automatically downloads and plays content” is equivalent to banning that content.

2) This is an important point, so let me be very clear: The listing of a podcast is not the same as the podcast itself. For podcasts, all the iTunes Music Store provides are pointers to the content. Even without those pointers, the content is still freely available other places. If you can’t grasp this point, then you should take a philosophy class.

We're talking about what gets listed in iTunes, since i've already clearly stated that I object to summarily banning content from being browseable in iTunes when there's no way to determine what standards are being used.

“Banning content from being browseable in iTunes” is a phrase that makes no sense. Content is either listed in iTunes or it is not listed; not being listed doesn’t make it “banned,” since it is readily and legally available elsewhere. The government can ban books; a bookstore can’t.

Yet somehow, MY desire to be in charge of what my kids see, or don't see is wrong.

Oh please. Implementing an “explicit” tag has absolutely no effect on what your children can or can’t see, if you don’t want it to.

Asking that Apple provide *better* tools at the client end is wrong.

When did I say that? It’s not an either-or situation.

But it's okay to have whatever content someone else decides is inappropriate unavailable.

It is available. See above.

But me saying, "Hey, stop deciding for me, let me handle this according to my own situation" is just completely beyond the pale, even though that's the answer you want too?

It’s not decided for you! Having an “explicit” tag, or having some content not listed in the iTunes Music Store, has no effect on what you decide your kids can or can’t access, if you don’t want it to.

“What about people who find things other than sex and profanity inappropriate? Well, they don't get any labels.”

Sure it does. It's absolutely useless unless you only find sex and profanity to be "bad".

It is one data point: whether the content contains sex or profanity. Deciding “bad” or “good” is up to you. In any case, it’s better to have more information than less information.

Every teenager in america loves those ratings. Saves time.

And see? You have proven my point.

Another strawman argument. Where did I claim that sex and profanity are things I have a problem with, or the only things I have a problem with? Maybe I object to use of graven images. Maybe I object to talking pigs. Maybe I object to any declaration that a BMW is a “sweet ride.” You have no idea what I find permissible, or what I find offensive. However, sex and profanity are both content that is generally indicated in our society, because many people care if their children are exposed to them. That is not an unreasonable request.

But as I have said repeatedly, no ratings system is perfect. It’s only a “poor analogy” if you assume that there exists some perfect ratings system that will satisfy everyone’s moral beliefs. I hate to burst your bubble, but there is no such system. But that doesn’t mean that we abandon ratings altogether!

Why not? It's not like they're that useful. I never use them.

Ah, I see: You don’t use the MPAA ratings, therefore they must be useless to everyone. Your logic is impeccable.

My son wants to see a movie, I talk to others who have seen it, check out clips, and if i don't like the answer i'm' getting, I'll watch it without him so I can make an informed decision.

So you’ve established that a ratings system can exist, while still allowing you to make decisions for yourself about what your son can see. Sounds like it’s there for people who want to use it, or people like you can make decisions independently. Sounds like it works well for everyone. And yet, you want to get rid of ratings, because you don’t use them. Sounds pretty selfish to me.

I was making a point which you wholeheartedly agree with: No ratings system can decide perfectly what is appropriate for every person. This soundly refutes your claim that Apple should only create an “explicit” tag if it exactly matches everyone’s personal beliefs about what is appropriate. Again, I’m sorry if I was too subtle in my point; I’ll try to be more obvious next time.

If every parent would do their job, the MPAA would have no reason for existence. It's only because parents like you demand that someone else tell them what is safe for their children that idiocy like the MPAA survives.

1) I never said that I rely on the MPAA as the sole decider about what is appropriate for my child. I was making a point about all ratings systems. See above.

2) Your argument is provably false. I know enough about the MPAA ratings system to know that if a movie is rated R, I’m not going to let my four-year-old watch it. I don’t need to watch every movie in advance of my child seeing it, because there are some (general, not necessarily 100% accurate for every child) guidelines that I can refer to.

Then when you find that the MPAA isn't foolproof, the reaction is NEVER "Wow, I should start checking this stuff out on my own". Instead its "WE NEED MORE RATINGS, YOU'RE MISLEADING US!!".

I am wholeheartedly behind the idea of parental responsibility. That doesn’t mean getting rid of ratings altogether. Is everything in your world binary?

Really? So every movie that's PG-13 or lighter is automatically appropriate for your son?

Haven’t we gone through this already?

Yep, the system isn’t perfect. Is this supposed to be news to anyone?

Yet you happily let such systems tell you what's okay for your kid to watch and listen to. Here's another word...Abdication.

No, I don’t. Pay attention.

talk to a video store worker about how much good that does, and how often they get yelled at for "letting my poor children rent filth". Seems to me that a very large number of parents are not just letting others parent their kids for them, but DEMANDING that others parent their kids for them. So much for ratings being worth a crap.

Are all your arguments based on anecdotal evidence? Here, let me try: “You say that seatbelts save lives? Tell that to my friend who was trapped by his seatbelt when his car crashed, and burned alive. So much for seatbelts saving lives.”

So now, do you think that removing the ratings system would result in MORE kids in the theater, or FEWER?

Ah yes…another black-and-white argument. Either parents make decisions completely independently of the MPAA ratings, or they depend solely on the MPAA ratings for everything. So there aren’t any parents out there who use the ratings as a guideline? There aren’t any uninvolved parents who, if the ratings system were gone, might say, “Wow, I don’t have this handy tool to help me out! I’d better start screening things more thoroughly!” Of course not…parents either “do their jobs” and ignore the MPAA ratings (like you), or they are irresponsible louts who let the MPAA raise their kids, abdicating all responsibility (like me). Nope, there’s no grey areas there. Makes things a lot easier.

You should actually try listening to yourself...you just proved my point. If you only know about what the bookstore has, then why would you even know TO special order something?

Okay, sarcasm is obviously lost on you, so I’ll answer directly: because there are other ways of finding out what books are available! The bookstore is not the gatekeeper for all information about books, and the iTunes Music Store is not the only gatekeeper for information about podcasts!

Care to compare sales of books that are prominently displayed to books you can ONLY special order?

The prominently-displayed books will have higher sales. So what? “Having lower sales” is not the same thing as “being banned” or “being censored.”

If you talk to a lot of independent filmmakers, they'll call it that.

And they’ll be wrong, just like you are.

If you make a movie that the major distributors don't like, you have almost no chance of getting it seen by a wide audience. Sometimes, you're lucky to get it into more than one city. Why do you think things like Sundance started?

…and again, you prove my point! The major studios don’t provide an outlet…so the free market steps in, and another outlet is provided. And if the iTunes Music Store doesn’t list some podcasts, another site will step in and provide that service. That’s capitalism. Unless Apple is somehow keeping any other website from distributing podcasts, your “censorship” argument doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

Siginificant. Doesn’t mean that AMC is banning or censoring any movies that it doesn’t show.

Actually, if you bother to look at the definition of censorship, that's precisely what they are doing. Thanks again for proving my point. You really make this too easy.

“Censorship: The practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts.” By definition, AMC can not censor a movie, because someone else can always broadcast it. Or the creator can rent a theater and show it himself. That’s the First Amendment at work. It’s only censorship if the content is able to be suppressed, and you can’t do that in our society.

What I said was that if it's not on iTunes, then the chances of a given podcast getting a wide listnership amongst iTunes users is very difficult. BUT, if you somehow think that relegating a podcast to the URL - only ghetto is going to keep it out of the hands of kids that really want it, you're delusional.

Another black and white argument. I never claimed that making a podcast URL-only would keep it out of the hands of all children who want it; I only claimed that it would make it more difficult to access…a point that you made yourself, over and over again.

It doesn't PREVENT kids from getting to porn podcasts in any way shape or form, it just gives them a minor speedbump to get over. Speedbump != wall.

And again, you keep contradicting yourself. It’s “very difficult” for adults to access, but it’s a “minor speedbump” for kids? And by the way, I never claimed that URL-only podcasts would be a wall. All I ever wanted was a speedbump.

Rather, they fail because they attempt to extrapolate the opinion of a very small group of people over a group of people that numbers over 300 million.

No, ratings make no assumptions about opinion whatsoever. They simply list what content is available, and provide a very general guideline based on that content. They are advisory, nothing more. But I guess since you don’t use them, you think that no one else should have access to those tools either.

If you tried to say that because you found ten people who didn't like Macs meant that all Macs are crap, you'd be laughed out of the building.

And yet you claim that based on one movie theater full of kids, or one complaint from a parent to a video-store clerk, all ratings are worthless. Huh.

No, that's what the MPAA says. I say they're utterly useless crap that only exists so that lazy parents don't have to spend any effort deciding what their kids can see.

Provably false. See above.

I'm not willing to allow the MPAA to do my thinking, so I don't need them. You, and far too many others, evidently have better things to do with your time.

You make flawed assumptions about how I parent.

It will have no effect on preventing kids from getting inappropriate content,

So it will affect the number of subscriptions from iTunes users, but it will have to effect on kids. Please explain how kids using iTunes are somehow not iTunes users.

and since, as i've shown, the tags are pretty much unreliable, they're not even able to do a good job of notification.

Oh, right…they list some guy’s name as “D**k,” so they are obviously completely worthless. Binary thinking rears its ugly head again.

I said that for people who are using iTunes as a browsing mechanism, forcing all "inappropriate" content to a URL only ghetto is a de facto ban, because, since casual browsers will have no idea that a given podcast even exists, they'll not know to look for it.

And as I have said countless times, content is not “banned” just because casual browsers are less likely to find it.

Posted by: Andy | July 13, 2005 02:47 AM

Sure I can, and I am in fact, but that's not what I have a major issue with. I have a major issue with the fact that no one knows what the criteria is. I have a major issue that people like you and Kirk scream about porn and profanity, and that once your little problems are fixed, you wander off and say "See, the system works". Meanwhile, every other parent who perhaps wants explict tags on other content is taking it in the shorts, because they don't count. So the system that you're so happy with has already failed. Your happy little "Ban it from being listed" system only works if your only concern is Porn and Profanity. It does no good for anything else.

You've missed every other point I've made, so i'm not surprised you continue the habit. They are banned from being listed. And by the way, if a bookstore refuses to carry a book, they are banning it, even if another store does carry it. "Ban" is not required to be an all-encompassing word. I'd put the definition here, but it's not like you're going to read it. For someone accusing me of an all or nothing POV, you're rather willing to have one yourself when it suits your purposes. You may want to look up the concept of the phrase "Pot calling the kettle black", as it fits you rather well.

By forcing podcasts that are "pornographic" or "Explicit" to a URL only status, they're relegated to a ghetto.

By what standards Andy? Who gets screwed? It's pretty obvious that you only care about porn and profanity. As long as that's covered, the fact that others are getting screwed, you don't care. "I'm taken care of, Apple met my needs, sucks to be you" is your mantra here. Of course, if Apple WASN'T meeting your needs I'll bet you'd be screaming long and loud that Apple needs to DO SOMETHING to PROTECT THE CHILDREN!

You entirely missed my point that when the government does such things, the entire process is open to examination and comment by the citizens. That was my point about governmental limitations.

And you entirely missed my point that the government is completely different from a corporation.

Not at all. In fact, the governmental process is preferable, since the people whom are affected have far more control and input over the process. We have none whatsoever over Apple's process.

Only to you. Most other people seem to understand what I'm talking about. Apple has point blank said the are not listing stuff they find to be porn. That's censorship bubby. The existence of a back door means you can get around it. It's still censorship. But this brings up another fascinating bit of inconsistency in your debate technique. You say that because the ban is not 100% effective, because the censorship is not 100% effective, that it doesn't exist, because it's obviously a failure. Yet, as we've seen on a number of occaisions, you THEN argue that Apple's handling of porn and profanity, or the MPAA don't have to be 100% effective to be of use. So what is it Andy? If you say the MPAA doesn't have to be perfect to be a good ratings system, then you can't exactly turn around and say a ban has to be 100% and all-encompassing to be a ban.

Um...podcasts defined as pornographic are not allowed in iTunes. That's banned. They are banned from being listed.

First, I said they're banned from being listed. Secondly, how are you going to know a specific title even EXISTS if it's not browseabble? What, you enter in the magical "Find me podcasts that I might like URL"? If you know of such a magical wonderful thing, pray, list it for us that we might all use it. It's not google, unless you have the time to go through nine million hits or so. If you don't know it exists, you can't type in the URL.

I haven't said they aren't. I've said that by banning podcasts from being listed in iTunes, Apple is effectively killing the chances of anyone who uses iTunes as their major or sole source of podcasts from ever finding them. Why? because people won't know they exist. It's like your silly point about "you can special order books". Well, if you don't know about the book, and you don't know anything about the book, like the title or author, no, actually, you can't. You keep repeating "BUT YOU CAN ENTER THE URL" without realizing the very important requirement of HAVING THE URL IN THE FIRST PLACE. How are people supposed to get the URL? Google is a very crappy tool for this.

If it's not listed because Apple refuses to list it, then Apple is banning it from the iTunes listing. That's a very simple, and yet correct use of the word. Secondly, bookstore chains ban books all the time. Wal-mart bans then like mad, as they also do records they don't approve of. Blockbuster bans all NC-17 rated movies from their stores. Again, your instence that the word "ban" conform to "What andy wants it to mean" doesn't actually have that effect. Especially since in the next statement you make, you prove my point about the absolute failure of the explict tag to be of any real use whatsoever...

Yet somehow, MY desire to be in charge of what my kids see, or don't see is wrong.

Oh please. Implementing an “explicit” tag has absolutely no effect on what your children can or can’t see, if you don’t want it to.

First, Thank you for proving my point that all this crap is useless. It's so nice that you did it for me. Secondly, this isn't just about the "explicit" tag is it? No, it's not. It's also about Apple banning content from being listed by a process and standards that are absolutely hidden from view and input. It's about the fact that non-pornographic and non-profane content, "explicit" or no gets ignored, and this system that you wax so rhapsodic about, even as you admit it's useless, does the people who are worried about that kind of content no good at all.

Asking that Apple provide *better* tools at the client end is wrong.

When did I say that? It’s not an either-or situation.

You blew it off entirely, because according to you, Apple has already given you an effective set of tools. Of course, you admit that those tools are not that effective at all.

But it's okay to have whatever content someone else decides is inappropriate unavailable.

It is available. See above.

Andy, what's the URL of a podcast you've never heard of and can't find on iTunes, and don't know the URL for?

But me saying, "Hey, stop deciding for me, let me handle this according to my own situation" is just completely beyond the pale, even though that's the answer you want too?

OF course having not listed is doing that! If i don't know what the URL for something is, how can I enter it?

It is one data point: whether the content contains sex or profanity. Deciding “bad” or “good” is up to you. In any case, it’s better to have more information than less information.

Because that's all you care about. If Apple wasn't meeting your particular needs/requirements, you'd be screaming like a banshee with a wedgie.

Every teenager in america loves those ratings. Saves time.

And see? You have proven my point.

What, that they're useless and of no real value beyond being able to market Apple as being all concerned about children? No Andy, that's MY point. You're really getting confused here

But you don't get it. What about the people who don't want APPLE or YOU or ANYONE ELSE to define what "pornography" is? What about people who want the abilty to decide for themselves? That's what Apple is removing here. You seem to think that "oh URL entry won't stop anyone", but it in fact doesn, because you have to HAVE the URL to enter it, and without an easy, simple way to find the URL, that won't happen.

Why not? It's not like they're that useful. I never use them.

Ah, I see: You don’t use the MPAA ratings, therefore they must be useless to everyone. Your logic is impeccable.

I don't use them because they don't work. They cannot work. The MPAA doesn't and cannot know what is inappropriate for my child. Telling me "Parental Guidance" suggested is like telling me "Breathing is good". What kind of moron lets vague ratings be the sole arbiter of what's okay for a kid to see. Yet because of the ratings, there are movies that may or may not be good, that never get released because they can't get a desired rating. So even a system that you say is "only a guideline" is in fact, causing movies that may or may not be good to be shoved in a closet somewhere.

My son wants to see a movie, I talk to others who have seen it, check out clips, and if i don't like the answer i'm' getting, I'll watch it without him so I can make an informed decision.

So you’ve established that a r