John Linton's Personal Musings

John Linton

....with no access to sexual stimulation - well done Apple!

Growing up in the Stone Age when not only was there no internet but "men's magazines" were both expensive and from limited sources I never developed any interest in or even had much exposure to pornography. Together with no lack of healthy (though perhaps in those days people like my mother would probably use an antonym such as 'unhealthy') interactions with members of the opposite gender from adolescence onwards, I never felt any sort of 'loss' in my young life by being 'deprived' of vicarious stimuli. I came across this earlier this morning and read the reference (and the comments on the reference) with amusement:

http://onespot.wsj.com/technology/2009/06/25/327720521-and-then-there-was-porn/

I think that I'm far from being a prude in terms of things sexual, vicarious or otherwise, but I guess I am old enough to think that the boundaries of sensible content distribution has gone a step too far - even though I think the content showed in this instance falls far short of even a loose definition of pornography - I took it as a decision by Apple to move towards what could be defined as pornography. My amusement wasn't with the fact that the 'content' had a few pictures of 'topless' young females but with what must have gone through the minds of the relevant managers at Apple to even think of going there. What on Earth were they thinking the benefits were? Surely they would have realised the negatives? If this was a misguided 'toe in the water' to see what could be offered in terms of pornography in the future then I think the people at Apple have completely lost the plot. There is a big difference between providing a service that can be used to download pornography to actually becoming the publisher of pornography making a dollar from selling it via a respected brand such as Apple.

For as long as I have been involved in the provision of internet services I have heard and read about the myths that XX% of all internet downloads are for pornography. I have dismissed those comments as being total BS if for no other reason that it is completely impossible to derive any statistics on the content delivered over any single network let alone determine the type of content delivered over the complete internet. I have been surprised over the years at the vehemence of the religious loonies in the Australian parliament and their censorship drives from time to time to limit distribution of pornography and am constantly thankful to "God" that he chose to have me delivered from my mother's womb into a society where more widely spread loonies don't insist that females be covered from head to toe to prevent the male population generally being able to view feminine attractiveness in its myriad different forms as a 'healthy' moment by moment public 'event'.

Stupid Stephen has been very, very quiet over the past few months about his censorship (sorry, campaign against child pornography) trial and one can only assume the doctrinaire muppets in the ACT who proposed that particular stupidity have finally worked out that internet censorship is a sure fire vote loser and that particular religious inspired idiocy will be allowed to die a quiet, and completely deserved, death prior to the next election. But I couldn't help wondering whether this move by Apple won't re-ignite the whole internet censorship issue - not because some very attractive girls with very attractive breasts can be seen on an expensive mobile phone but the sheer pointlessness of exploiting teenage girls in such a strange way for no possible commercial reward and, almost certainly, only commercial 'punishment'.?

I, personally, don't give a toss what commercial enterprises do to generate income and am not, for one moment, commenting on where any line should be drawn on what is "pornography" or some other definition of what 'metaphorical line' needs to be defined for "inappropriate" content in any aspect of Australian life - to say I have less than no interest in such matters is to wildly exaggerate my involvement in such idiocies. However I think the association of Apple's corporate image with "peddling porn" is a mega major misjudgment by somebody and not only because the religious loonies in the US make our home grown variety look like X rated movie producers.

Again, if Apple gets some grief from some US maniacs picketing their stores and burning their iphones, I am less than interested - except to consider why such a company would take such a risk that cannot possibly benefit it in any way (and I have given this incident many seconds of deep consideration) but will, I would think almost inevitably, cause it 'image damage' and for absolutely no benefit. The only reason to even bother to think about it at all is in the context of what this particular piece of 'out left field' nonsense will ignite/re-ignite in Australia?

I am forming the view that irrespective of however well we planned our business and irrespective of how conservatively we 'acted' there were a minimum of two things in every year we have operated Exetel that 'come out of the blue' to rock you back on your heels and in all sorts of different ways endanger some aspect, or occasionally all of your business. Not that I think this particular silliness will affect Exetel but I'm pretty sure it will affect, negatively and totally unexpectedly, other people such as iphone stores.

I will finish the Exetel business plan for the coming year over the weekend and I took the 'Apple Porn' decision as a salutory reminder that no tiny decision should be made without giving it not only a second 'thinking' but almost certainly a third 'thinking'. I realise how pathetically timid that sounds but when I review the past disasters that Exetel has been subjected to (has subjected itself to) all but one could have been avoided with a little more thought and some sensible contract emplacement. In retrospect that is crystal clear. It wasn't anything like as clear at the time but that was simply because not enough thought went in to the decision making and planning processes.

But then again......there never seems to be enough time to put into future planning..