Steve Jobs takes his anti-porn crusade very seriously. Not only does he forbid you from watching magazine porn on your iPad or playing porn games with your iPhone, but yesterday Apple finally got approval for a “communication control” that could stop you from texting descriptions of pornographic acts to your friends and neighbors. But those are among the public’s favorite SMS messages to send and receive! Some billionaire golf gods will not be very happy about this. The patent, first filed in 2008, a year after the iPhone was introduced, basically sounds like an Anti-Sextron 3000. The system or device could block “forbidden content” from incoming or outgoing messages or remove “the objectionable content” during the receiving process. The patent says, “The content of such a message is controlled by filtering the message based on defined criteria. The criteria may be defined according to a parental control application.” Presumably that parent could also be a beleaguered former Swedish nanny.
According to the patent, “If the control contains unauthorized text, the control application may alert the user, the administrator or other designated individuals of the presence of such text.” Whether parents will be able to retrieve the exact wording of the deleted texts is unclear. But one thing is: Teenagers of America, Steve Jobs is trying to get you grounded.
So, how exactly will “designated individuals” go about gathering terms to add to their “defined criteria” file? We expect more not-at-all-made-up investigative pieces like My Fox Atlanta’s totally accurate list of “Top 50 Text Acronyms Parents Should Know,” which the site has since taken down. Did you know that Kitty was both an acronym (surprise!) and the preferred slang for lady parts among today’s youth? Innovative teens might refer Jobs as being anti-“PRON.” Your secret is safe with no one, millennials.
But before you dismiss this entire Big Brother (Big Mother?) scenario as a potentially invasive nightmare, consider the patent’s educational element.
Dónde está el blow job? We feel more learned already.
Apple Patents Anti-Sexting Device [TechCrunch]
Text-based communication control for personal communication device [U.S. Patent]
