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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.

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