Delta to censor in-flight Wi-Fi

Picture this...

Imagine what you're advocating: I purchase tickets for my young daughter and I on a Delta flight. Seated next to us is a man with a laptop viewing hard-core pornography during a multi-hour flight. My daughter, who is in second grade, is exposed to that the entire time, since the airplane is full and we are in a confined space. Does anyone here actually think that is a good situation to put one's child through?

What one chooses to view in the privacy of one's home is one thing, but in a confined, public space like an airplane, I appreciate Delta's stand on this, in protecting the ears and eyes of young children (and others who don't wish to see and hear such things)

Censorship

I think Delta has every right to censor porn or other questionable sites on the wi-fi it has on its planes.

How would you like to be on a flight with your 6yo child and the guy next to you is watching a porno on his computer.

Granted they could also block other airlines sites, but hey, its their network, if you don't like it, don't buy the service !!

Whiners and Complainers

Do you want to pay 10 or 12 bucks to get limited internet access? Yes or No? That's the plain and simple question here.
Going off in a huff about rights? where will it end? Lawsuits? You're all overstating the obvious.
There are good reasons to limit the sites viewable: You've already argued enough about porn. I'm not going there. BUT: Streaming media uses up a lot of bandwidth and limits the usage by other passengers. Many sites, but especially porn sites, contain trojans and viruses - that'd be great on an airplane - wouldn't it? Let's see if we can hack their firewall and jack the plane!
Limit the sites you can access from the plane? You're stupid if you don't!

Delta is screwed either way

If they limit what can be viewed, the usual crowd will come out of the woodwork screaming censorship and waving subpoenas, totally forgetting that Delta is providing a luxury, not a necessity.

If they allow everything, then some callous jerk will take the opportunity to surf pandorasgoatsandsluts.com while sitting next to a family of four, once again opening themselves up to lawsuits for allowing an environment that permits sexual harassment (companies have been successfully sued for allowing sexual intimidation by letting employees surf porn sites where other employees of higher standards could see it).

I think the only safe choice for Delta is to bail out of the idea of allowing internet access on flights because they are damned if they do or damned if they don't.

"You can call it a right, but it's also a privilege that you should handle with maturity."

More of the same

Whether you realize it or not, the Web and the media are already censored. Certain types of information are already illegal to be viewed or possessed. Editors and content managing directors already determine what will or won't be published on their radio and TV stations, in their magazines and newspapers. Some of it is coerced by government regulations and threats of fines, others by profit and circulation interests and concerns for continued employment.

By limiting or blocking information pertaining to various subjects, the censors compound the perceived problems of the subjects they hide. Keeping the subjects hidden or outlawing them entirely only furthers misinformation, increases its reputation as a taboo subject (which increases its attractiveness to many groups of people), drives it further underground and proliferates its dissemination through illegal trade methods, those having been created and perpetuated by the existence of the censorship efforts themselves.

This is always the case, where anything highly desired but made illegal will be obtained, regardless of attempts to hide or outlaw those items. Blocking its natural dissemination will morph what would normally be, at most, a nuisance to society at large into a lucrative income stream for those willing to traffic in those items: criminals. In the case of blocked Internet content, savvy searchers for blocked items will simply use proxy services to get at those items, circumventing the prohibition and funding the providers of the proxy services.

Those usually willing to provide such artificially illegal items would usually be criminal elements, or would be people who would be prompted to act in a criminal manner because of the prohibition of those items. The U.S. learned this lesson in a very public and disastrous manner with its attempt to outlaw the sale and possession of alcohol by adopting the 18th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Organized crime took hold and flourished as a direct result of outlawing alcohol. Petty thieves and gang punks were elevated to the status of warlords who wreaked havoc on a national level.

Organized crime continues to flourish because of similar prohibitions of pornography, drugs, prostitution, abortion, firearms, etc. Whenever governments try to act as policemen in matters of morality instead of leaving such things to the responsibility of the people, they merely fan the embers into raging bonfires. Censorship and prohibitions always have the opposite effect of what may have been good but misdirected intentions.

Censorship

It concerns me when we try to justify various shades of grey when dealing with censorship, after all are these not the same arguments such repressive internet unfriendly countries like Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Iran provide?

Either have censorship or don't, its a simple decision. Each of us are responsible for our actions, is it not a farse we are responsible enough to board an aluminium tube in close confines of many other people for a specific of time and act in a responsible manner but
suddenly we become consumed by the wilds of the internet that we can not know what is right or wrong? The internet is a medium to which information flows, and there could be valid arguments that a paying customer is having his/her rights violated unless and until they specifically agree to censorship.

Conclusion, Delta is in business to make money flying planes from point A to point B and this is a slippery slope they are walking, let the judiciary and or Police do their job of Policing society, if someone feels they are offended by an individuals actions whilst on a plane, then there is a recourse for them, it's called court!

Is Delta big brother? Do they want to be?

I just think Delta is making their own problems here. The market and peer pressure would take care of this better than any corporate sensor will. They should have a clear refund policy in effect if they are going to do this. I have written more on my blog here

Censorship

Technically it's not censorship unless it's done by the government. Delta is a private business. As such, they can make whatever rules they want pertaining to the use of their service. Customers who don't like those rules can fly on a different airline (or not at all).

As a libertarian and a proponent of freedom, I would be outraged if this were a government action prohibiting "inappropriate" web content on in-flight services. In the interest of that same love of freedom, I think a company should have the right to run its business as it wishes, so long as the policies don't endanger or defraud anyone, and to respond to customer wishes (and I have a feeling that a large percentage of customers would prefer not to be subjected to a seat mate's pornography).