our freedoms by censoring sexually explicit material. And my first reaction was, yes!

That is bullshit. This is the internet, not 1950's television. Why are they censoring

anything?

Then, I started looking in to it. And getting past all the paranoid theories about how iPhones

are the new big brother, and how Google is just a government pawn,

And the armchair anthropological analysis on how Silicon Valley is a culture crushing,

puritanical, old world model for what's right and wrong...

And what happened was, I started looking at real tangible business reasons for why these

companies would want to censor pornography, and an easy answer

came to mind immediately. Business partners.

Apple, for example, has made deals with Verizon, GM, Disney,

and a ton of other major corporations. So burning bridges with any of those companies

probably isn't worth the risk.

It makes sense, right? But, it also ignores the fact that porn itself is a huge industry

and by censoring them these companies are cutting off business opportunities with those

companies as well.

Plus, what's Disney gonna do, just not sell iPhone games? Is Intel gonna stop making computer

parts? Business partners probably have a lot to do with it, but it just seems like too

simple a solution.

So, maybe it's not about companies. Maybe it's about customers. Apple needs everybody

to buy their stuff...moms, kids, Mormons, Methodists, Satanists, Stalinists, soup lovers...

everyone. And they need those people to feel safe using their products without the fear

of running into material that they'd find offensive. So in that regard,

censoring sexually explicit material is a no brainer.

But I still don't think that's the reason. Companies could easily make it so that the

user themselves can censor whatever they want. Just like Google does with SafeSearch.

Or, they could create a dedicated section of their content for adults only, like how

video stores used to have that creepy room in the back for porn enthusiasts? Again, all

of this likely contributes - but it's not the only reason.

So, why are these innovative cutting edge tech companies censoring content? It could

be all of those things I listed earlier, or it could be because they are cutting edge

and innovative.

They're creating new things, and in extreme cases like Google Glass, they're creating

new, strange, misunderstood, and potentially terrible things.

11. And that means convincing the general public to buy into using, owning and loving

something they know nothing about and are naturally suspicious of.

You're asking the world to learn something new and you've got to do whatever you can

to make that learning process as simple as possible. Letting porn apps and topless girls

into the conversation can make it really hard for the general public to concentrate.

So I say, censor away technology! As long as you keep coming up with new and exciting

ways to make our lives a little bit better. I'll just look at porn the old fashioned way,

by opening up a web browser. Wear condoms everybody.