In related news, developers are welcome to cast shootings, stabbings, explosions and other gory images.
Graphic violence seems to enjoy greater protection than nudity, both culturally and legally, in the U.S. For example, there's the variable obscenity standard, which shields children from sexual images but not images of extreme violence:
I wish software companies would stop trying to play moral police like this. It's so entirely subjective, and as you mentioned, moral standards vary wildly.
But whatever. I'm sure this is going to keep kids from seeing "graphic" material, right? None of us ever went around our parents to see something we shouldn't have...
> developers are welcome to cast shootings, stabbings, explosions and other gory images
Although I strongly agree with your general sentiment regarding the USA's backwards policies on sexual content, I'm not sure it's accurate in this particular case. From the article:
> Also verboten are hate speech, violence and bullying and online gambling.
It appears to me that Google is simply attempting to block all "R-rated content" as opposed to just nudity, sex, etc.
It's true that on the surface, this schism seems absurd. However, I believe there's a little more nuance to it than you realize.
Middle-class parents in a low crime neighborhood don't really have to worry about young Sally growing up to be a psychotic warrior because they to occasionally watch blockbuster movies like 300 or Saving Private Ryan.
But if family movie night regularly included films like Eyes Wide Shut or Fifty Shades of Grey, one can certainly imagine it may influence a young adult's sexuality. And at a time when they are exceptionally impressionable and have particularly poor judgement no less. This is an unsettling thought to most parents.
That said, I do believe that Americans generally overexpose their children to bombastic, violent movies. I'm certain that this has something to do with our relatively higher violent crime rates. I'm not sure if our media shapes our collective consciousness or the other way around. I suspect it's both.
Who enjoys violence? Why possible value does graphic violence have for entertainment? There is nothing laudable about it. It is simply evil for evil's sake.
On the other hand, there's nothing abnormal about the desire to look at nudity or sexually explicit material.
I hope the prolonged exposure to low-sex-high-violence content from the US doesn't damage our moral compass over here. When I was a kid, there was still the occasional female toplessness in movies targeted at the whole family.
It'll be interesting to see if they stick to this globally.
The distinctly American prudishness regarding sex is almost a mirror image of large parts of the world with respect to cinematic violence. It's part of why you can be so sure these west coast companies will never monopolise the market in Germany, for example.
That prudish stereotype is a bit over-blown by a smaller (but louder) subset of Americans that really are prudish.
I'm in the "bible belt" (southeast US), and even here there's plenty of people who don't get too up in arms about this kind of stuff.
The internet has been the great equalizer for the younger generations. Smut, graphic video, violence, and all sorts of other things are only a keystroke away.
This is just name calling, and Americans get shit on for being culturally insensitive...
Pornography is awful stuff. It exploits the way our minds work, and ruins peace and happiness. This isn't religiosity, I don't believe in the supernatural. It's just something I've come to learn as I've gotten older.
> The distinctly American prudishness regarding sex is almost a mirror image of large parts of the world with respect to cinematic violence.
Don't American blockbusters, chock full of graphic violence, do quite well overseas in general? That seems to imply that the attitude towards cinematic violence is not the same at all.
"No nudity" is a lot more strict than just "no porn". Does that mean that, for example, you could not make a Flickr app that lets you slideshow your photostream on your TV because Flickr allows artistic nudity? Or could you, but you'd have to restrict it to only show photos that are marked as 'Safe' in the safety filter? What about similar sites that don't have multiple content safety categories?
I'm pretty sure it means, "Don't do anything that Google worries might get them bad press in the US."
If you'd like to know the details of that, just ask! Just ask your nearest lamppost, garbage can, or alley cat. They're much easier to reach than developer support at Google, and they're almost as likely to give you a useful answer.
Looks like Google just lost a large percentage of the entertainment market:
- The large percentage of people who like porn, plus...
- The smaller (but outspoken) percentage of people who don't like to be told what content they're allowed to watch on the devices that they've purchased.
We'll see if the market segment they're trying to attract with this policy (families with children, if I had to guess) will make up for this loss.
I seriously doubt the correlation between "liking porn" and "refusal to purchase a device that does not have official porn apps, especially considering I could stream porn from my phone or computer to my Chromecast just fine. In fact, if I'm being honest, I never install porn apps, even on devices that allow them, even if I intend on watching porn on them anyway.
It's rules such as these (and all the other rules of app stores) that keep many developers from working with such limited platforms. Too bad Google doesn't focus on keeping malware out of its app store as much as it focuses on keeping porn out of it.
They don't care if you stream your own porn on it. They just don't want to sell/distribute porn themselves. There's a big difference that nobody seems to be getting.
I guess this is kind of nice because I won't have to worry about people connecting to my <insert non-technologically adept person>'s open or poorly secured WiFi and start playing porn as a joke.
But you can still stream a Chrome tab, so... maybe they are not really preventing anything except good audio sync.
So what ever happened to Ubuntu TV ? There seems to be like half a dozen different "Chromecast like" sticks in the Chinese market [1], clearly building these things isn't too hard to master. So where is the open stick version?
Last time I spoke to some Canonical devs, it's still being worked on, with a target for 14.04 as an alpha I think. I'd love to have ARM Ubuntu-everything; ARM laptop, Ubuntu TV stick, Ubuntu phone that turns into a full desktop when plugged in... The tech is so nearly there. Sigh, one can dream :)
EDIT: the main issue is ARMs lack of anything remotely similar to a BIOS. That's sort of changing, linux now has some stuff in the kernel to help target various ARM chipsets, but it's still difficult. Would be cool to see a kick starter for an ARM Ubuntu TV Stick -- I wonder what protocol would be best for "flinging" content to it?
What a bunch of hypocritical Presbyterian nuns. A 3-feet pile of dead bodies is OK on TV for 16-year olds, but people actually undressing before having sex is morally corrupting. I propose capital punishment for every U.S.-ian who was not born from a virgin.
[+] [-] hawkharris|12 years ago|reply
Graphic violence seems to enjoy greater protection than nudity, both culturally and legally, in the U.S. For example, there's the variable obscenity standard, which shields children from sexual images but not images of extreme violence:
http://www.communitydefense.org/cdcdocs/obscenityman/ch10.pd...
[+] [-] gtaylor|12 years ago|reply
But whatever. I'm sure this is going to keep kids from seeing "graphic" material, right? None of us ever went around our parents to see something we shouldn't have...
[+] [-] Nav_Panel|12 years ago|reply
Although I strongly agree with your general sentiment regarding the USA's backwards policies on sexual content, I'm not sure it's accurate in this particular case. From the article:
> Also verboten are hate speech, violence and bullying and online gambling.
It appears to me that Google is simply attempting to block all "R-rated content" as opposed to just nudity, sex, etc.
[+] [-] ryandvm|12 years ago|reply
Middle-class parents in a low crime neighborhood don't really have to worry about young Sally growing up to be a psychotic warrior because they to occasionally watch blockbuster movies like 300 or Saving Private Ryan.
But if family movie night regularly included films like Eyes Wide Shut or Fifty Shades of Grey, one can certainly imagine it may influence a young adult's sexuality. And at a time when they are exceptionally impressionable and have particularly poor judgement no less. This is an unsettling thought to most parents.
That said, I do believe that Americans generally overexpose their children to bombastic, violent movies. I'm certain that this has something to do with our relatively higher violent crime rates. I'm not sure if our media shapes our collective consciousness or the other way around. I suspect it's both.
[+] [-] thret|12 years ago|reply
On the other hand, there's nothing abnormal about the desire to look at nudity or sexually explicit material.
[+] [-] sentenza|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] fidotron|12 years ago|reply
The distinctly American prudishness regarding sex is almost a mirror image of large parts of the world with respect to cinematic violence. It's part of why you can be so sure these west coast companies will never monopolise the market in Germany, for example.
[+] [-] gtaylor|12 years ago|reply
I'm in the "bible belt" (southeast US), and even here there's plenty of people who don't get too up in arms about this kind of stuff.
The internet has been the great equalizer for the younger generations. Smut, graphic video, violence, and all sorts of other things are only a keystroke away.
[+] [-] leobelle|12 years ago|reply
This is just name calling, and Americans get shit on for being culturally insensitive...
Pornography is awful stuff. It exploits the way our minds work, and ruins peace and happiness. This isn't religiosity, I don't believe in the supernatural. It's just something I've come to learn as I've gotten older.
[+] [-] mikeash|12 years ago|reply
Don't American blockbusters, chock full of graphic violence, do quite well overseas in general? That seems to imply that the attitude towards cinematic violence is not the same at all.
[+] [-] cowpewter|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wpietri|12 years ago|reply
If you'd like to know the details of that, just ask! Just ask your nearest lamppost, garbage can, or alley cat. They're much easier to reach than developer support at Google, and they're almost as likely to give you a useful answer.
[+] [-] scarecrowbob|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] signed0|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greenyoda|12 years ago|reply
- The large percentage of people who like porn, plus...
- The smaller (but outspoken) percentage of people who don't like to be told what content they're allowed to watch on the devices that they've purchased.
We'll see if the market segment they're trying to attract with this policy (families with children, if I had to guess) will make up for this loss.
[+] [-] phenol|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forrestthewoods|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joesmo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cloudwalking|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nsxwolf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nacs|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smithzvk|12 years ago|reply
But you can still stream a Chrome tab, so... maybe they are not really preventing anything except good audio sync.
[+] [-] mesozoic|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yogo|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pekk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|12 years ago|reply
[1] http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/923540954/2013_Latest_High...
[+] [-] girvo|12 years ago|reply
EDIT: the main issue is ARMs lack of anything remotely similar to a BIOS. That's sort of changing, linux now has some stuff in the kernel to help target various ARM chipsets, but it's still difficult. Would be cool to see a kick starter for an ARM Ubuntu TV Stick -- I wonder what protocol would be best for "flinging" content to it?
[+] [-] tempodox|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mateo411|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]