this is a short piece i co-wrote. enjoy
I am a history buff turned consumer internet company strategist. I love using my background in social and cultural history in a current day setting. Over the last week, I have come across several headlines that have eerie similarities to the headlines of the political, economic, social and moral reforms of the early 1900’s. The Progressive Era was a time of reform in this country, a time when a grassroots movement of political purification grew into a national movement and produced some of the most amazing advances in our society (woman’s suffrage in example) but it also set the stage for the desire amongst some to instill a particular set of values on everyone. With the good also came the bad in the form of some rather ill conceived social reforms, many of which were full of paternalism and patronage.
Come to today and we see these types of headlines:
Walmart bans adult section from newly acquired Vudu
Apple bans adult themed apps from app store
There will always be institutions of influence trying to impose upon us what we should believe or think as well as control the information we can have access to. In my opinion, the recent moves by Walmart and Apple resonate with the sound of this dark side of our progressive era. I believe that they are overstepping their corporate boundaries to make these moral judgments, influencing if not choosing for us the type of content we are able to access. That said, their policies are at best inconsistent (I will leave it at this) while weighing in on a battle that has long been lost and one they really can’t control anymore. While we are certainly not the most prudish country in the world, we are far from the most liberal when it comes to sexuality. Movie ratings, parental controls and age restrictions are some of the tools our society has come up with as a means of limiting access to content and language deemed inappropriate by a higher power. Much like prohibition proved, the more you try to restrict it, the greater people will desire it and will find creative ways to get it. In the great day of the internet and universal accessibility, people can and will find with ease anything they choose to on their personal devices, regardless of imposed restrictions by the manufacturer.
Perhaps the smarter path these companies should have taken was to create higher barriers to access the information. Parental controls would have been an easier solution rather than appearing to be overtly controlling our content sources.
But for me, the really big question is, who are these companies trying to prevent from accessing this ‘inappropriate content’? It surely can’t be adults, can it? And if not adults, then it must be children they wish to “protect”? If it is children, then I feel we should look at the bigger societal issue, one that these companies would never look at, let alone spearhead as it would mean reduced sales and profits. Why are children playing on $300 smart phones or sitting in front of the TV rotting their brains? Shouldn’t children be outside playing, reading books, using their imagination, engaging in conversations with others, etc? And why aren’t the parents supervising on some level? Children will have the rest of their adult lives to be attached to a multitude of devices. If someone took up such a movement, it would definitely be progressive and I think most people would commend these organizations rather than lambasting them over intruding into our lives. What do you think?
