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Google-Funded Free Wi-Fi Kiosks Are Scrapping Web Browsing Because Too Many People Were Using it For Porn (businessinsider.com)
This is why New Yorkers can't have nice things. LinkNYC, the initiative to install super-fast wifi hubs in New York City, is suspending web browsing on all its tablets after 8 months due to "inappropriate behavior," the company says, according to a report on BusinessInsider. From the article:Google parent company Alphabet funds LinkNYC through its spinoff Sidewalk Labs. "... Some users have been monopolizing the Link tablets and using them inappropriately, preventing others from being able to use them while frustrating the residents and businesses around them," the company writes in a statement. DNAInfo previously reported that people were using the hubs to watch porn.
Like there's any other use for the Internet.
If I want to watch porn and masturbate at a kiosk, who are you to take away my American freedoms? George Washington fought for my right to masturbate at kiosks.
I bet they found lots of DNA info after people were done with those tablets.
Porn or cat videos. Or playing Candy Crush for hours. Once again, addressing the wrong problem. Why should it matter what I watch on them. The real problem is here is monopolisation of the devices. I can monopolise one of those devices just as easily watching cat videos.
For once. Just once, will somebody look at a problem and address it properly rather than taking a side-swipe at some unrelated hot-button topic?
I'm utterly shocked about this completely unexpected development.
Exactly! The right solution here is clearly more free porn booths. And, well, if you are going to add more of those, they might as well come with glory holes.
Because Christians don't like nude or sex.
LinkNYC says that it's working with city officials to come up with potential solutions, like time limits, so that it can allow users to browse the web once more. In the meantime, people will still be able to use the tablets to make calls and look at maps.
Earlier poster has the right solution. Free porn booths complete with glory holes and rolls of toilet-paper.
Who would have guessed that a free service would be abused? It's almost like there should be a word or saying for that. Oh yea, there is: Tragedy of the Commons
This issue seems to come up a lot, doesn't it?
Butter my butt and call me toast - who would ever have expected that?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
The Tradjizzdy of the Commons
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I wonder when such a service, when offered for free, is subject to net neutrality. Watching art photos in a museum is art porn. Maps of Indian restaurants for those that are palak paneer-deprived is also porn.
The only way to limit this is to curate it, which then removes liability protection for services rendered, if I'm not mistaken.
I understand the purpose, but without curation of some type, it's an open platform for users. Curating it costs $$, and so the ad revenue drops, making it less useful. Oh, wait......
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
It seems that anymore, we're taught that doesn't really exist. Which is a shame. Because it obviously does. =]
Lol
Wait what? I don't think I am drawing the line here.
No, that's the wrong kind of cat video!
browsing porn and facebook but mostly just porn and more porn and an occasional get rich quick scheme but then more porn......
This is just a temporary measure until they come up with a better solution.
Sorry, I don't buy that. If the problem is that some people are over-using the systems preventing others from using them, then completely disabling them for everybody while you look for a better solution is worse than doing nothing. You've turned unavailable for some people in some places at some times to unavailable for all people every place all the time.
There's no question this was a knee jerk reaction to "pr0n is bad!" They're not trying to prevent people from hogging them. They're preventing people from viewing material they consider objectionable.
For porn.
I'd seriously like to know. What was an acceptable level? When did it cross the line?
Who would have guessed that a free service would be abused? It's almost like there should be a word or saying for that. Oh yea, there is: Tragedy of the Commons This issue seems to come up a lot, doesn't it?
I've only ever seen homeless people using these things. I've seen them doing all sorts of things with them - one was signing up for a Twitter account, another was watching music videos on Vimeo or whatever it is and dancing in the street while singing along. I'm not at all surprised that porn is being watched also.
Seriously - the fact that most people use it for porn should tell them that - most people want to watch porn. It's kind of silly to try to act all paternalistic and stuff and say that this is wrong - but in fact apparently it's Google that is wrong and immature, unable to accept a basic truth about the human condition.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Turn off the porn, not the people.
When I was at a Sun Microsystems early in internet growth before the Dot-Com Bust and widespread adoption and growth, the porn industry was one of the largest purchasers of hardware and software. No one liked to talk about it so a lot of people don't know. It is a lot like the oldest profession, far more people demand it than will admit to it and it is big business. HD porn takes a lot of bandwidth just like HD movies. why single out one commercial market from the other? Let people decide what they want to consume: that's free market liberty. And stop being prudes. Don't spend money on it or watch it if you don't like it.
See? This is why we, the unwashed Yankees can not have nice things, while the wise and enlightened Europeans are going to enjoy the Wi-Fi provided by their loving and caring governments.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Are you fucking ignorant? Or maybe just a moralistic white bread Catholic? Watching videos isn't abuse, dumbass.
There's no difference between watching stupid cat videos and watching porn videos. You can't enforce Wifi use based on morality unless you're the fucking Pope.
I live on the stretch of Third Avenue that first got these kiosks. I don't care what people watch on them, but it's a pretty regular thing to see somebody camping out next to one of them. Often they've overturned a trash can or newspaper vending box to use as a seat - though I've seen some wheelchairs being used for more comfortable seating. In any case, they're there for hours at a time, and the overall effect isn't much more appealing than a homeless guy sleeping in a cardboard box...
That said, the whole kiosk thing is a backdoor insertion of extremely bright LED screen ads that draw your eyes to them as they rotate their images multiple times per block as you try to walk up the avenue. And for what? Free wi-fi that requires you to sign in, tracks you, and provides nothing that your phone isn't already providing over the cellular network. I suppose the charging ports are nice - if you're willing to stand there long enough to get a decent charge.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
Their hubs, their rules. This is a classic example of the tragedy of the commons. There's always some douche who wants to abuse it. I'm curious as to why your ire isn't directed at the abusers.
Ahhh. You live in that magic land where everybody can afford smartphones and big data plans to browse and watch videos for hours on end.
How do I get there?
See subject
More likely they are trying to prevent a backlash - get them pulled quick before some state congressman introduces another 'ban the porn' bill or the local tabloid fills with stories of how Google is endangering children.
Well, no one could have anticipated this. Or at the very least the organization that put up these kiosks would have needed a lot of Internet experience to think that this might happen.
If the problem is that porn is being left on equipment when a user is done I might suggest simply resetting and rebooting the device after each use. That would be easy enough to do with one or more simple sensors and should be done for the security of all users anyway. If it is that Google doesn't like what the users are using the service for, I would suggest stop spying on your users.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This is google we are talking about. I'm sure they have tons of data about what people were actually watching while monopolizing the devices. My guess is there data shows that it was not pussycat videos that were being watched.
Their hubs, their rules. This is a classic example of the tragedy of the commons. There's always some douche who wants to abuse it. I'm curious as to why your ire isn't directed at the abusers.
When you're offering a community service "my stuff, my rules" doesn't fly, or at least, doesn't make you a good guy for offering that service.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
At least said homeless guy doesn't have time to mug you if he's on the internet kiosk all day.
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You are missing the point. ENTIRELY. Who cares what people are watching or doing on the devices. The problem is not content, it's how long a single person uses the device for a a time.
You are the type of person who constantly applies the wrong solutions to problems because you don't take the time to understand the real problem.
Who would have guessed that a free service would be abused? It's almost like there should be a word or saying for that. Oh yea, there is: Tragedy of the Commons
Tragedy of the Commons isn't about this case. Tragedy of the Commons when there's a common resource, and individual self-interest results in that resource being depleted even though that's contrary to the collective group-interest.
This doesn't apply at all in this case. The only plausible resource is "time on the tablet". It's not being depleted at any faster rate by one person using it exclusively then it would be if everyone shared time more equally.
Web browsing, email, and other non video streaming apps take a trivial amount of bandwidth. I allow video streaming on my open wifi for about 10 minutes and then traffic control kicks in making streaming not very pleasant for that user but regular Internet access still works for everyone. Users eventually get with the program and realize they can watch short Youtube videos or stream music all day long but they can't watch Netflix or porn all day. It doesn't matter if it's Netflix or porn anyway.
As opposed to places where people who deny being wankers hang out? Pretty much everybody on the planet is a wanker or a wanker and a liar. If you really aren't masturbating, you probably need to see a doctor or psychiatrist.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
"Oh no guys! People are looking at porn! At our Kiosks! How awful! What should we do to combat this?"
"Just kill the free Wifi. That will teach those scum"
Apparently it is impossible to easily block porn for 95% of users that are too dumb to VPN through it. (and even then, that can be blocked as well with a little extra effort)
Stupid solution for a trivial problem.
I bet if it was Terrorism, Gore or CP it would be completely ignored. Fucking America, get your priorities straight. It is 2000s, not the 1800s.
My guess is there data shows that it was not pussycat videos that were being watched.
I agree 37.5%.
Sadly, many of the people in power pushing for Utopia have no understanding of Human Nature. Lots of suckers fall for the same rhetoric they do, and the same delusional beliefs. "Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb."
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Yes it does, it's your stuff. If people abuse it, even in just your opinion, it's your prerogative simply stop making it available. Unless you're promoting that once offered the "community" can *force* you to keep making it available instead of ponying up the resources you were. Is that your position?
That's mostly my position. 2 distinct points:
* If you offer a community service, that makes you a good person, unless there are a lot of strings attached to the "gift", in which case it makes you a bad person.
* If you offer a community service, and people come to depend on it, you incur a responsibility to keep doing it. You chose to become responsible, and congrats you succeeded.
It's the nature of responsibility that you are required to plan ahead.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Giving homeless people convenient access to the Internet seems like an awesome outcome of this program, honestly...
Move to 3rd Street in nyc
There are quite a few companies dedicated to scrubbing "inappropriate" content from web browsing. Simply install one of them onto the tablets and call it good. And if bandwidth is a problem simply put a limiter on each tablet to keep them from going over a certain quota in a set time period. If you're using free devices you can't complain about there being some limits.
Yes it does, it's your stuff. If people abuse it, even in just your opinion, it's your prerogative simply stop making it available. Unless you're promoting that once offered the "community" can *force* you to keep making it available instead of ponying up the resources you were. Is that your position?
They were GRANTED the right to install it on the streets. That comes with a responsibility.
But what they grand-parent post said though was that, it at least takes away the value of the gift. It is like giving your kid a car but then saying it can only be used to vist grandmom and fetch you yourself when your are too drunk at the pub. Sure it your gift and your kid, so you can set any rules you want, but it does take away nearly 100% of the value as a gift.
isn't directed at the abusers.
Was the abuse defined upfront? If I go to an all you can eat dinner is it abuse if I eat all I can eat? If I use a free service, is it abuse that I do what I want with it for free when no restrictions are placed on it up front?
There is someone doing some abusing here, but it's not the people using the service.
That is basically what the tragedy of the commons is about--what happened isn't like giving your kid a car, it's like giving your kid keys to the family car...and having your kid decide that hey, since it's not their car, there's nothing wrong with doing things to it that run up mechanics' and body shop bills...and rarely bringing the car home so you can see what the damage is this time.
See also 'diffusion of responsibility' and other related concepts, though honestly most places deal with this overall problem by having sessions be of explicitly limited length. (As for filters? I'd go with it only applying if you're using the free tablet--or just make it so the sole option you got for browsing on it is a lightweight text-only browser.)
If it is in fact what they want most...
looks ike a purrrfect bussiness oportunity but people in the big city are to dumb to figure it out... porn kiosks... pay a quarter to jack off in a booth
If you offer free potatoes, you must take into account that somebody will come with a truck.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
What do they think, the internet was made for?
This is just a temporary measure until they come up with a better solution.
Sorry, I don't buy that. If the problem is that some people are over-using the systems preventing others from using them, then completely disabling them for everybody while you look for a better solution is worse than doing nothing. You've turned unavailable for some people in some places at some times to unavailable for all people every place all the time.
No, they're not. You can still use the other functions - wifi services, free calls, and maps - as the poster you responded to points out! You can't do any of those things while someone is hogging the booth with porn (or anything else).
This is exactly the problem with socialism. Give free shit to people and they abuse it since it's free.
All the #SelloutSanders supporters should take note. Give people free college and your drop out rates and education quality will go down. People will sign up for irrelevant classes, take 6 years to do a bachelor's etc.
Or simply filter it through a content firewall... just a thought.
Move to 3rd Street in nyc
But what if I don't have $4,000 per month to rent a studio apartment? Oh, wait. I can live on the street and browse the 'net on a Google kiosk. OK! I'm heading to the Big Apple right now!
I find it shocking that you find it shocking that little people (this includes dwarfs and midgets, I assume) respect others!
In fact, I find it disrespectful to call them 'little people'. :-p
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---