A Nashville man, Chris Sevier, is blaming Apple for his porn addiction.
Sevier “respectfully demands” that Apple sell its devices in “safe mode”—with software that filters out adult content. Adults would then be required to deliberately turn off the filter if they wanted to use the device to access porn.
The Plaintiff claims to have purchased a Mac Book Pro, opened Safari and misspelled a web address, leading him to see pornographic images for the first time. These images “appealed his biological sensibilities as a male,” which then led to the downward spiral of porn addiction. He began preferring “cyber beauties” to his wife, leading to the failure of his marriage, the loss of his family, depression, and an inability to work.
Sevier claims that no one at the Apple store warned him that “looking at pornography images and videos could cause addictions.”
Additionally, Sevier claims that by selling devices with unrestrained Internet access to minors in his state, they are in violation of Tennessee Code Annotated 39-17-911, which makes it illegal to knowingly sell to a minor anything that visually depicts nudity and/or sexual conduct.
By requiring adults who want to view porn to turn off default filtering, Apple saves itself from civil lawsuits, protects children, and preserves First Amendment rights to give adults access to legal pornographic content.
My Reaction
On one hand, there are many elements of Sevier’s Apple complaint that are laughable; it would be hard for anyone to defend it as a serious lawsuit.
For instance, just to add a little color to his complaint, Sevier’s electronic music group created a music video filled with tantalizing clips from actual porn films and included the link to this video on the first page of his complaint. (One has to wonder why, if he is so scarred by porn, he would publish more of it on YouTube, a site accessed by millions of teens.)
He also claims that Internet porn is hurting the economy, causing “‘mom and pop’ porn shops” to go out of business. (Mom and pop?) Why even include this?
On the other hand, there’s nothing really outlandish about his proposal to Apple. In fact, this policy is actually adopted by other organizations already. Federally funded libraries, for instance, require filtering on all public terminals and allow adult patrons to request that an over-blocking filter be disabled.
This is called the Children’s Internet Protection Act, and when it was challenged in court by the American Library Association, going all the way to the Supreme Court, the Justices ruled in favor of the Act. Why? Because requiring adults to opt out of a default filter is not an undue stress to someone’s rights.
Will the Plaintiff’s case be heard in a court of law? I don’t know. Will he be taken seriously? Probably not. Is the idea of selling Apple devices with default filtering a good idea? I think so.
I really like your point about if this man is serious, he would not put porno clips on his youtube video. Also, a serious person would feel no sorrow for porn shop owners going under.
Does anyone need to wonder now about the great advantage that I enjoy considering that for thirty years I only showed my face, hands and feet when in public and I always have worn long, loose dresses.
The virgin Mary is one of my examples and maintaining seriously her look while out in public has brought me nothing but good. I thank and praise GOD.