i like your attempt at "woah... oh no.... wow... isn't that movie a little scary for you??"
meanwhile the lyrics in the background are "suck my c..."

Lane did you hear me say that I was "supporting" censorship?

Explain to me how I'm "supporting" censorship.

I may have had a misunderstanding of how YouTube videos were screened for the iPhone but that's a far cry from "supporting" censorship.

In fact the more pertinent part of my statement was the one where I take personal responsibility for policing what my kids watch by saying "yeah, I've got to watch what he watches better there I think."

How you get from "I thought they were doing this..." to I'm supporting and advocating a corporation censor content is beyond me.

If my kids were watching the cartoon network and a character came on there and said "Fuck" and my reply was "oh, I thought that the cartoon network didn't allow the word Fuck on that channel, I'd better be more careful about what my kids watch on the cartoon network." Would that also be "supporting" and "advocating" censorship?

I mean under your logic, anyone who "thought" that there wasn't swearing on network TV would be guilty of "supporting" and "advocating" censorship whether they agreed with it or not.

putting words into other people's mouths that aren't there. tsk, tsk, lane... not good!

the reason why i called you on it thomas, is that you have been completely up in arms every time flickr has filtered content to the degree you stopped posting on flickr. At the same time, you said that Zooomr had adopted a strict anti-censorship stance and I recall people asking you if that meant we would be seeing hardcore pornography side by side with pictures of our kids and puppies. I don't recall ever seeing how that worked out. Will we be seeing porn on zooomr openly or are you going to "filter" content there?

In Jackson's review, you ask him how many videos he's watched on it and it seems you have no idea what his use is or what he's watching. But you assumed that someone was filtering the content for you so you didn't actually have to worry so much. so if you assume that iphone filters content, and that's ok, why is it not okay for flickr to do the same? that's what I mean by advocating it. and not only is it okay for iphone to censor, in your mind, but you waited outside a store overnight in a line to pay top dollar for that. now that's support.

the cartoon network is hardly an appropriate comparison. the iphone is hardware that delivers the media to the user. would you give your kid a TV set or a video game console and not worry about the content that it contains? that's the iphone.

Lane, there's a difference between Flickr censoring me multiple times personally as well as the entire country of Germany and other parts of the world and an offhand remark by me that I thought a site was selectively choosing content for their service.

Zooomr's censorship stance is clear. You can read it here. We adopted the anti-censorship policy that Yahoo rejected.

blog.zooomr.com/2007/06/13/zooomrs-stand-on-censorship/

You say: "that's what I mean by advocating it. and not only is it okay for iphone to censor, in your mind, but you waited outside a store overnight in a line to pay top dollar for that. now that's support."

Lane that's the problem. You can't read minds. You have no idea what's in *my* mind. And for you to say that based on assumptions that you make that I am "advocating" censorship is ridiculous. If I don't expect to see the word "fuck" on NBC TV when I watch it does that mean that I'm "advocating" censorship. It also doesn't mean that I "support" censorship because I buy a TV capable of receiving NBC television. Not expecting to see something and advocating it are two entirely different things.

The fact that I waited outside to buy an iPhone is neither here nor there. The iPhone is a device which serves a function for me. Primarly it's a phone and an mp3 player. How content on it is handled is actually less of concern to me. But with the browser on the phone I can access any site in the world as far as I know. Your saying that by buying an iPhone I'm somehow "supporting" censorship is a total stretch. That's like me saying that you support censorship because you bought a television set and NBC/FCC censors the content on their shows.

In all of this you fail to recognize the very words of responsibility that I took for my need to better monitor the content that my son sees.

Let's see. Didn't you just buy a car. I wonder if they allow the word "fuck" in the owners manual? No, well then I guess you are advocating and supporting censorship yourself.

i don't really have the time to revisit this much more, but my feeling is the same. Your assumption was, that out of the box, the iphone was kid-safe with filtered content. so you allowed your kid to play with it and watch whatever he wanted, thinking that the content would be acceptable without you viewing it first and making that call. Which does amount to you supporting censorship. If you want to be a champion of free speech, i'm fine with that and will applaud your efforts. but you have to be consistent with that, and by that i mean, if you thought in advance the iphone censored their content, that you would not buy that product, just as you no longer support flickr. (although that's not really the case either, i think your feelings on flickr require you to delete your account there, which you won't do for some reason.)

we all know the iphone is not just a phone, so your comparisons to my new car purchase isn't relevant.

Lane, the fact that you are accusing me of "supporting" and "advocating" censorship because I bought an iPhone is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. I suppose that the other million people that bought iPhones are also supporting censorship as well, or is it just me?

The iPhone is nothing more than a computer in a phone. It has a browser on it. I can get anything I want on that browser. I can even *gasp* get porn. It's very much like the computer that sits on your desk. Buying a computer is not advocating or supporting censorship. Buying an iPhone is not advocating or supporting censorship.

If I go out and buy a TV. And the TV can get the Sopranos where they say fuck and NBC where the word fuck is not allowed. And lets say I actually watch NBC and HBO on this TV. Let's say I even let Jackson watch NBC on this TV. Under your twisted logic I'm somehow "advocating" and "supporting" censorship. You know what? When I pay for DirecTV each month I *know* that NBC is going to be censored. Does this stop me? No. Nor does it stop millions of other Americans who buy television from DirecTV or Comcast cable or heck, just pick TV up over the air with rabbit ears. Every American who owns a TV set is not guilty of "advocating" and "supporting" censorship Lane. Really Lane, do you know how silly this sounds?

Personally I didn't know what the iphone did or didn't do beyond the fact that it had a fully functioning browser. Nobody did. People bought it on a whim.

You say: "Your assumption was, that out of the box, the iphone was kid-safe with filtered content. " Here you are very wrong and again I'm not sure where you get off reading minds. I obviously knew the iPhone had a *fully functioning browser* that could get *anything* on the internet. This is hardly "kid-safe."

My feelings on Flickr also are not really known by you. If you bothered to read most of what I've written about my decision not to post photos anymore you'd notice that it stopped being fun for me.

Let me remind you what I wrote as my reason for stopping posting to Flickr: "More than this though, after uploading shots every day for over 2 years, my Flickr experience has stopped being fun for me. I still may hang out a bit in the deleteme uncensored group but I won't be interacting with photography much more on Flickr."

You know why Flickr stopped being fun for me Lane? Mostly because I had to deal with asinine people making asinine comments like this one. I got tired of assholes from Yahoo leaving anonymous comments on my blog from Yahoo corporate IP addresses, etc.

Flickr kind of stopped being fun for me because I had to deal with irrational and idiotic people who seem to thrive on endless debate there. Your comment is an example of that. I go and make a lighthearted video with my son and somehow you try and twist the whole thing into some big debate about censorship. It's tiring.

This feels more personal to me than anything. How about this deal. I don't tell you how to live your life, and you don't tell me how to live mine? Seems fair to me.

This isn't a censorship issue. They made a custom YT app for the iPhone which shows a selection of YT content. The assumption that this curated selection was "kid safe" has nothing to do with censorship.

I think Lane is trying to prove some point about THawk being a hypocrite, but the claims at the base of this attempt are false. Limp.

This isn't a censorship issue. Apple & YouTube made an app that presents a curated selection of videos. THawk assumed this selection was "kid safe". This issue has nothing to do with censorship. I think Lane is intent on proving some point about hypocrisy but his argument never gets off the ground.

There is a difference between content selection and censorship. One actually keeps people from seeing things they don't want to see or something their parents wouldn't want them to see. the other removes content so no one can see it.

keeping some videos off the iphone isn't censoring because you cans access all those videos on youtube.

Ben, Jakob,

Somehow Vimeo just ate my reply that I wrote. So I'm going to try again, shorter and sweeter.

I think this debate has gone way off topic and people are missing the point.

I am not debating whether or not Apple/Youtube filters/censors content for the iPhone. It makes no difference to me.

I was pointing out Thomas' hyprocrisy, and my opinion on that still stands.

Lane, the problem with your argument and what Ben and Jakob are trying to point out is that *no hypocrisy exists*. There is a difference between censoring and filtering content.

The iPhone has a fully functioning browser that can get everything. Everything. Tits, ass, porn, merkeley's beautiful naked photos, the word fuck, whatever you want. You can go to any website in the world. It's a browser like on any computer.

The iPhone also has an area where they *highlight* some select YouTube videos for promotion.

Since you bring Flickr up and somehow seem to liken this to my personally being censored and having my photos and words *permanently* destroyed for the whole world never to see again forever on that site (yes actual censorship), let me use an example here that hopefully you can understand.

Are you familiar with the "Explore" section Lane? It's a section on Flickr where Flickr chooses to promote some of the work on the site. Now, flickr purposely filters out tits and ass out of explore. Is this censorship? No. Have I ever called this censorship? No. Because tits and ass are still on Flickr. You can still go see them -- well unless you live in Germany, or Singapore or Hong Kong I guess.

But the point is that the fact that Flickr doesn't include tits and ass in their *Explore* section doesn't mean that anyone who uses Flickr "advocates" and "supports" censorship. Do you "advocate" and "support" censorship Lane? Because you use Flickr and Flickr's Explore section where content is highlighted is very much filtered.

My criticism about censorship around Flickr has involved things like Flickr deleting my photos so that *no one* can see them on Flickr. I have not said oh, Flickr, censored me because they didn't promote my photo in Explore. I said Flickr censored me because they *deleted* my photo and words. And _rebekka's photos and words. And prevented a good chunk of the world from seeing all T&A shots *anywhere* on Flickr. This is a far cry from how Flickr chooses to promote content in a special section on Flickr.

The fact that you can't see the difference between a service or site being allowed to promote select content vs. censorship is the real problem here and since you like to use words like hypocrite, why don't we call you one too, because under your definition of censorship, the fact that a part of flickr is filtered makes you guilty of hypocrisy and while we're at it instead of saying you merely "put up" with filtering, lets just call you not only a tolerator of censorship but an actual "supporter" and "advocate".

Do you know what an "advocate" is Lane? It's someone who promotes and champions a principle or concept. I'm not an "advocate" for censorship. And my owning an iPhone doesn't make me an "advocate" for censorship. How you get to the point that people who buy iPhones are "advocates" for censorship really is beyond me.

We can keep debating this if you want but it's probably better not to use charged and loaded words like "advocate" and "hypocrite"

The reason why I said that I thought this was personal was because I cannot fathom any other reason why you would want to spread such obvious FUD about me and my character.

funny, we agreed privately to stop debating this yesterday, i responded as succinctly as possible to two people's comments, and then you write a fucking novel.

you said to me you were tired of arguing with people online. it's very simple to make that stop...you A) don't get on the soapbox all the time and attack others, B) you don't attack others for things you turn around and do yourself and C) you stop writing novels for rebuttals. You might also want to show some respect for the person who you are "debating" with by not talking to them like they were a 6 year old child by endlessly repeating yourself.

i made my point, my feelings stand, i think you are a hypocrite when you assume iphone filtered their content and you were okay with that.

greg, i love kids. i care a great deal about kids. I don't have kids. i think there should be kid safe places, where they aren't exposed to adult content. I'm fine with that kind of censorship. but in general, i don't want my content censored. I expect parents to monitor what their kids are doing so that I don't have to exist in a kid safe zone all the time. i think we all know by now that youtube is not kid-safe.

Fair enough. I certainly don't want the whole world to be a kid safe zone. But can we agree that it's not enough to just say, "Hey parents, watch your own kid, they're not my responsibility"? Besides, it's not even clear to me what Thomas was talking about when he talked about "screening." Seems like you jumped to the worst conclusion, though.