Earlier this year,
Apple made several changes to the App Store to address complaints that apps with nothing other than a prurient purpose had infiltrated the App Store. Part of the problem was that kids could still access screenshots for "racy" apps. Apple also began removing a number of these apps after it received complaints from the Parents Television Council. Though the group thinks Apple has some room for improvement, it will be focusing its future efforts on other platforms that are growing in popularity, such as Android, which currently lack Parental Controls.
Parents Television Council is notorious for complaining to the FCC about the sexual or violent nature of TV shows, griping about foul-mouthed YouTube comments, and campaigning against kids being able to buy M-rated video games. The group targeted the App Store earlier this year because Apple's devices—particularly the iPod touch—are so popular with kids and teens. The watchdog group had concerns that some apps could be accessible to children, that App Store pages had Web links that led to yet more objectionable content, and that in the case where Parental Controls were activated, kids could still browse and preview these apps.
Apple ultimately responded by cleaning out a number of these contentious apps and started blocking screenshots in iTunes in addition to the blocks already present in the on-device App Store app. "Whenever we receive customer complaints about objectionable content we review them," Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller told Ars at the time. "If we find these apps contain inappropriate material we remove them and request the developer make any necessary changes in order to be distributed by Apple."
PTC applauded Apple's actions. "Apple has taken a positive first step towards eliminating kids' access to sexually explicit and pornographic content on its product lineup and we applaud the company’s efforts," the group's president, Tim Winter, said in a statement.
PTC does think there's more that Apple could do. In particular, the group is concerned that there is no filtering options for Mobile Safari as there are for desktop browsers. This is even more important on a mobile device, PTC's national grassroots director Gavin McKiernan told Ars, because parents can't sit with the child and monitor their browsing as they could on a desktop PC.
"We're not up in arms against Apple, though," McKiernan said. "We think there's room for improvement, but we are definitely pleased with their response to our complaints."
PTC also thinks other mobile platforms need to take similar measures.
Steve Jobs recently dinged the Android platform as being a "porn phone" during Apple's iPhone OS 4.0 unveiling, partly by virtue of its ability to run any app from any source. "You know, there's a porn store on Android and it has nothing but porn apps," Jobs told journalists during a Q&A session. "You can download them; your kids can download them."
PTC agrees with Jobs that this is a problem, as no other smartphone platform offers a system like Parental Controls. "We plan to draw attention to other platforms, such as Android, or Verizon's Vcast service, that aren't really doing anything," McKiernan told Ars." We definitely want to see progress from some of the other handheld devices."
Despite PTC's singular "think of the children" focus, the group insists it isn't interested in wholesale censorship, as some of its previous campaigns might lead one to believe. "Our goal is on limiting children's access to objectionable content" and ensuring parents have the ability to limit this access when deemed necessary, McKiernan told Ars. "We take no stance on the ability of adults to access legal images, movies, or whatever the case may be."
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