Apple and Microsoft Chart a Porn-Free Future for Smartphones

by THOMAS L. McDONALD
06/23/2010

Technology pundits like to point out that “porn drives new media technologies.” Like much common wisdom, many accept this without evidence.

And, like much common wisdom, it is flatly untrue.

For every example of new technology which flourished partly due to pornography (such as VCRs in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s), there are dozens that made their impact with little to no dependence upon pornography: the printing press, photography, film, radio, television, cable television, personal computers, compact discs, portable music players, video games, mobile phones, DVD, Netflix, iTunes, Facebook, and so on.

In order to make their “media technology needs porn to succeed” arguments, critics make questionable claims. These range from the patently absurd, such as the notion that Chaucer and Boccaccio are examples of medieval porn, to the merely irrelevant, such as the existence of obscure “stag” films from the early days of cinema.
the rest image by Gonzalo Baeza Hernandez

In a separate exchange with TechCrunch.com, Jobs reiterated, “We do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy an Android phone.”