Now American Airlines to censor Wi-Fi

Censorship without censorship

I suppose its something intrinsic to the Fourth Estate that the subject of censorship becomes a knee-jerk reaction from them. Nevertheless, Mr. Elgan should look in a mirror before waxing eloquent. By his own logic, since not a single act of real censorship has been engaged in, he has no business complaining about it.

This is not MY logic, but his.

As much as I disagree with

As much as I disagree with the concept, I think the airlines are doing the right thing in accordance with laws requiring the prevention of "offensive" behavior in the workplace. If they know the possibility exists, they don't do anything, and a flight attendant is offended by the material, the airline is liable. Stupid, yes, but that's the law.

Of course, I think it's ridiculous for anyone to be "offended" by the material in question, anyway. In my mind there's a difference between "offensive" and "Offensive" (note the capital O). The former is usually meant in the sense of "I don't like it," where the second is used correctly (the most common examples would be certain racial epithets). Personally, I'd much rather see violence censored than certain natural acts (see, I'm trying hard to avoid any auto-censors in this software, too) -- said with the understanding that I'm opposed to all forms of censorship other than of properly classified material.

Porn surfing already reported

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=AMR%3AUS&sid=aeAkdfULJJ1s

"We've heard a lot of complaints from flight attendants and passengers" about travelers pulling up objectionable Web pages, said Roscow. While the union discussed the situation with American executives, it didn't make a formal request to block specific sites, he said.

I live in Canada. One of our

I live in Canada. One of our major airlines has free satellite TV at each seat with 20 or so channels for passengers to watch during flights. One of the channels is Discovery Channel Canada. One of the afternoon shows they broadcast is called Mayday ("Air Emergency" in the USA). I have spent many afternoon flights watching stories of planes crashing and almost crashing and have never once been asked to change the channel.

If airlines are going to limit what you can and can not watch on your laptop, dvd player, etc for fear it will offend others...then how about that screaming child in the seat beside me?

They already take action for laptop bad manners.

Flight attendants today have the right to require a passenger to stop viewing objectionable material on a laptop, such as an R-rated or violent film. So they are simply taking a proactive step and shutting down the objectionable material before it actually shows up on a laptop.

Every time I travel and plug in a film on my laptop, I get a heightened and sustained interest from the flight crew. the last time I booted up a film, One-Six Right, they saw the planes and thought it was going to depict a plane crash. when they saw it was a pro-aviation film, they came around to watch it more often!

Scott