iPhones and Mobile Porn

That porn has gone mobile is no surprise. It was only a matter of time. Europe caught onto the cellular porn craze much sooner that the US, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry there. In the US it’s only a multi-million dollar industry. But the iPhone has made it easier to access porn on a cell phone in the US because with the iPhone you can easily surf the web. Prior to the iPhone only about 6% of cell phone users surfed the web vs. 98% of iPhone users. And with Apples announcement of their new iPhone 3G the web surfing experience will happen 3 to 4 times faster - just what kids need to downloading those big porn movies. Yeah, your kids can do that on their iPhone.

On the bright side, during Steve Job’s (Apples CEO) announcement last week of the new iPhone he talked about a new enhancement - Parental Controls. The Parental Controls will, among other things, allow you to block access to explicit content on your teens iPhone. When announcing this Steve said, “Some teenagers might not like this but that’s they way it’s going to have to be”. I say “Bravo Apple”. Filtering access to explicit material on cell phones has not been something that has been done very well by other cell phone manufacturers. With Apple making web access so easy on the iPhone it’s nice to see them stepping up and adding some protection to go along with it.

Some of you are probably thinking, “My teen doesn’t have an iPhone so no worries”. Well not so fast. Most cell phones have a camera. Often that camera can make videos also. There have been many stories of kids taking pictures of porn with their cell phones and then sharing them at school with their friends. Worse yet, stories are already coming out about kids using their cell phones to take videos of actual sex acts that are being performed on them or their friends. Then they send the video to all their friends cell phones and before you know it most the school has seen it. It’s disturbing that these types of things are happening and sad that kids are getting exposed to so much so young.

So what are parents to do? Get rid of their kid's cell phones? No. I don’t think that’s the answer. My teenager has a cell phone and I’m glad she does. We can reach her when we need to and she can reach us. But we do check her cell phone to see what she’s got on there. Cell phones can store lots of photos and videos so it’s good to check (without warning) what your kids might have stored on them. Our daughter cell phone does not have Parental Controls. So she does not have Internet access on her cell phone. It’s not a matter of trust it’s a matter of removing a possible temptation. Plus it would be counter productive to have an Internet Filter on your home computer but give your kids a cell phone with unfiltered Internet access. So see if your kids cell phone can access the Internet. If so, and there is no way to filter it, you might want to have that feature turned off.

Aren’t all the things you have to think about as a parent fun? Just trying to keep up with all the technology your kids are into can be a full time job. I’ll do my best to make your job a little easier.

Matt Sepeta wrote on June 23rd 08 at 01:49AM

Sounds pretty scary to me. Not the fact that people can view pornography on their personal phone, but the way "you people" are reacting to it, rather. Perpetuating the police state, lack of faith in HUMANITY, etc...

Kevin Outland wrote on June 23rd 08 at 06:04PM

@Matt Sepeta:

Maybe I should clarify who this Blog is for - Parents. That's why it called the "Parents Blog". I write this Blog to keep parents informed about what's going on on the web as it relates to their kids. So I react to the trends and technologies that can impact how kids interact with the web and porn. Some of my "reactions" my be scary - to Parents - because often they don't know what kind of dangers are facing their kids online and how easily accessible some of the dangers are.

Part of a parents job it to "police" what their kids are doing. It's when parents don't police what their kids are doing that things start to go down hill. If you want to call that kind of parental oversight a "police state" then I'm all for it.

As for your "you people" statement I'm not sure who you're referring to. The only one writing this Parent Blog is me.

Johnny wrote on June 24th 08 at 11:04AM

Wow, Johnny from Live Help here. This is great news. I am always getting questions from men asking if there is software to block it on their phones. It has been very frustrating for them and for me with no answer. This is great news not just for parents, but adults who want that option for their own accountability.

Jeff Moran wrote on June 24th 08 at 09:30PM

Matt

What evidence amounts to outweigh how humanity has proven from the beginning of time to not be all that trustworthy?

To have faith in humanity to do things right or even well is an anomaly, which (without coincidence) gives credence to the concern to protect one's children from destructive things.

Brian wrote on July 9th 08 at 05:30AM

I currently work in the cell phone industry and it is amazing to see what kind of pictures teens place on their phones. Teens are willing to place naked pictures of themselves on their phones. Believe it or not I would not be susprised to see a trend of video images coming shortly. Many phones can already transfer video to video live. It truly scares me.

Justin wrote on July 12th 08 at 01:59AM

The new iPhone's parental controls are limited to merely enabling or disabling the internet browser, not filtering or monitoring content. I have several friends with iPhones, including myself, and we would all fully embrace an accountability software (such as X3 Watch) for our phones and would encourage xxxchurch to develop it now that Apple is supporting third party application development.

Gaven wrote on July 12th 08 at 02:11AM

I think Justin is right. An X3 watch for the iPhone would be great. Besides all the new iPhone does is get rid of explicit content from music not from videos or pictures.

Steve wrote on July 19th 08 at 12:43AM

It's not just cell phones. Other mobile technology, such as digital cameras and Playstation Portable systems can be easily used to watch porn and so can Ipods. Odds are most teenagers have at least one of these devices if not more and for a computer saavy kid (which most are these days) it takes mere minutes to load up a portable device with porn.

It's a major threat and will continue to be as the technology just gets better and faster. On the plus side, the next generation won't have the benefit of being more tech saavy than their parents since their parents will be part of an online driven generation as well. It'll be a much more level playing field.