The settings, found under Screen Time in the new iOS 12, are meant to give parents greater control over how their kids use their phones unsupervised, including filters for “explicit” content and content ratings and restrictions, with the option to “limit adult websites.”
As first reported by sex education platform O.school and tested by Motherboard, the filter blocks longstanding educational sites like Scarleteen and O.school, but allows sites like The Daily Stormer, an extremist neo-Nazi white supremacist platform that publishes articles about how women “secretly want to be raped.” Teen Vogue, meanwhile, is blocked.
[...]
Barrica also pointed out in her article that what's restricted is sometimes based on how the search is gendered: "how do I jerk off" shows search results, but "what is a vibrator" is blocked.
Parental controls on IOS need a ton of work I have a device with parental controls turned on and I am constantly blocked because of simple keywords that are out of context. I've been blocked from...
Parental controls on IOS need a ton of work I have a device with parental controls turned on and I am constantly blocked because of simple keywords that are out of context. I've been blocked from reading news articles about contraception, lgbtq issues, senators having affairs, and I have been blocked when looking at articles about mens products ( was looking for excercise advice). I don't think this is super sensational I think they just have a super strict filter for anything sexual and haven't started filtering "hate speech" type things yet.
In a system that is built like crap you can find results to tell any story you want to tell because when nothing is consistent you can get tons of unintended results.
i think this just speaks--from a purely technological standpoint--to how absolutely fucking terrible most parental controls or filters are at doing their jobs due to the nature of what they seek...
i think this just speaks--from a purely technological standpoint--to how absolutely fucking terrible most parental controls or filters are at doing their jobs due to the nature of what they seek to accomplish, and how there's still such a long way to go with the technology that it's debatable whether or not a manual filter process would be the better option.
I think the fact that they've prioritized tackling sexual content over hate speech/radicalization does say something, though. So while any system built like crap will have a bunch of things...
I think they just have a super strict filter for anything sexual and haven't started filtering "hate speech" type things yet.
I think the fact that they've prioritized tackling sexual content over hate speech/radicalization does say something, though.
So while any system built like crap will have a bunch of things filtered out that shouldn't be, I think it's important to point out that this should have been a discussion before creating the system. "Oh, we didn't mean to make it difficult for teenagers to access sex education, we just forgot that it might be important and wrote bad code" doesn't excuse it, because the end result is the same whether or not it was intentional.
And if we're assuming that blocking sex education is an error, presumably they didn't fully discuss things internally and with experts before they started or they would have caught this issue themselves instead of needing users to point it out. So something about the process (lack of discussion beforehand, lack of testing before rolling out, lack of outside input, etc) needs changing.
Judging someone without considering their motives seems like a terrible idea. If a doctor killed someone due to a mistake in a surgery should they get the same punishment as someone who...
Judging someone without considering their motives seems like a terrible idea.
If a doctor killed someone due to a mistake in a surgery should they get the same punishment as someone who purposefully killed someone? The end result is the same whether it's intentional. :)
I agree 100%. This is one of the reasons I love tildes. We just had a full conversation with disagreements and analogies and reached a consensus by being thoughtful. That's pretty amazing on the...
I agree 100%.
This is one of the reasons I love tildes. We just had a full conversation with disagreements and analogies and reached a consensus by being thoughtful. That's pretty amazing on the internet!
Hooray for keyword-based blocking! Because "vibrator" is an obvious word to block if you're blocking sexual content, while "jerk" has a legitimate non-sexual use. Before jumping to conclusions...
Hooray for keyword-based blocking!
Because "vibrator" is an obvious word to block if you're blocking sexual content, while "jerk" has a legitimate non-sexual use. Before jumping to conclusions about how the blocking is gender-biassed, I'd want to see the results of searches for "condom" and "IUD" and "contraception" and "fleshlight" and "butt plug".
I assume the other unwanted positives in the results are based on something similar: there's probably not a lot of mentions of condoms and vibrators on StormFront.
A lot of these problems might be fixed by changing the explanation of the filter: rather than saying it blocks "adult websites", say it blocks "sexual content". This manages parents' (and random internet testers') expectations by identifying exactly what the filter blocks - and what it doesn't block.
Of course, there's the larger societal issue where violence and racism is more acceptable than sex, but... let's leave that argument for another day! :)
They don't have these specific examples, but the original article has a couple more. Apparently "blow job" gets through the filter, while "pussy eating" does not. "Cunt" is fine, but "dick" gets...
Because "vibrator" is an obvious word to block if you're blocking sexual content, while "jerk" has a legitimate non-sexual use. Before jumping to conclusions about how the blocking is gender-biassed, I'd want to see the results of searches for "condom" and "IUD" and "contraception" and "fleshlight" and "butt plug".
They don't have these specific examples, but the original article has a couple more. Apparently "blow job" gets through the filter, while "pussy eating" does not. "Cunt" is fine, but "dick" gets blocked.
Looking at some of the examples in that original article, the filter does seem somewhat lopsided, as they say there. And directing search results for counselling for gay teens to conversion...
Looking at some of the examples in that original article, the filter does seem somewhat lopsided, as they say there.
And directing search results for counselling for gay teens to conversion therapy sites is simply outrageous.
Yeah, I'd read both articles before posting one, so I think I didn't realize that the Motherboard one missed some of those examples... I'm willing to believe it's just a poorly thought out filter...
Yeah, I'd read both articles before posting one, so I think I didn't realize that the Motherboard one missed some of those examples...
I'm willing to believe it's just a poorly thought out filter rather than deliberate or malicious, but it's still Not Good™ and says a lot about the questions they asked (or didn't ask) before starting and their QA process.
Parental controls on IOS need a ton of work I have a device with parental controls turned on and I am constantly blocked because of simple keywords that are out of context. I've been blocked from reading news articles about contraception, lgbtq issues, senators having affairs, and I have been blocked when looking at articles about mens products ( was looking for excercise advice). I don't think this is super sensational I think they just have a super strict filter for anything sexual and haven't started filtering "hate speech" type things yet.
In a system that is built like crap you can find results to tell any story you want to tell because when nothing is consistent you can get tons of unintended results.
i think this just speaks--from a purely technological standpoint--to how absolutely fucking terrible most parental controls or filters are at doing their jobs due to the nature of what they seek to accomplish, and how there's still such a long way to go with the technology that it's debatable whether or not a manual filter process would be the better option.
I think the fact that they've prioritized tackling sexual content over hate speech/radicalization does say something, though.
So while any system built like crap will have a bunch of things filtered out that shouldn't be, I think it's important to point out that this should have been a discussion before creating the system. "Oh, we didn't mean to make it difficult for teenagers to access sex education, we just forgot that it might be important and wrote bad code" doesn't excuse it, because the end result is the same whether or not it was intentional.
And if we're assuming that blocking sex education is an error, presumably they didn't fully discuss things internally and with experts before they started or they would have caught this issue themselves instead of needing users to point it out. So something about the process (lack of discussion beforehand, lack of testing before rolling out, lack of outside input, etc) needs changing.
Judging someone without considering their motives seems like a terrible idea.
If a doctor killed someone due to a mistake in a surgery should they get the same punishment as someone who purposefully killed someone? The end result is the same whether it's intentional. :)
Absolutely not because the intent matters.
I agree 100%.
This is one of the reasons I love tildes. We just had a full conversation with disagreements and analogies and reached a consensus by being thoughtful. That's pretty amazing on the internet!
Hooray for keyword-based blocking!
Because "vibrator" is an obvious word to block if you're blocking sexual content, while "jerk" has a legitimate non-sexual use. Before jumping to conclusions about how the blocking is gender-biassed, I'd want to see the results of searches for "condom" and "IUD" and "contraception" and "fleshlight" and "butt plug".
I assume the other unwanted positives in the results are based on something similar: there's probably not a lot of mentions of condoms and vibrators on StormFront.
A lot of these problems might be fixed by changing the explanation of the filter: rather than saying it blocks "adult websites", say it blocks "sexual content". This manages parents' (and random internet testers') expectations by identifying exactly what the filter blocks - and what it doesn't block.
Of course, there's the larger societal issue where violence and racism is more acceptable than sex, but... let's leave that argument for another day! :)
They don't have these specific examples, but the original article has a couple more. Apparently "blow job" gets through the filter, while "pussy eating" does not. "Cunt" is fine, but "dick" gets blocked.
Looking at some of the examples in that original article, the filter does seem somewhat lopsided, as they say there.
And directing search results for counselling for gay teens to conversion therapy sites is simply outrageous.
Yeah, I'd read both articles before posting one, so I think I didn't realize that the Motherboard one missed some of those examples...
I'm willing to believe it's just a poorly thought out filter rather than deliberate or malicious, but it's still Not Good™ and says a lot about the questions they asked (or didn't ask) before starting and their QA process.