Some airlines are starting to offer internet connections on their flights. This worries people, because there is a whole lot of pornography on the internet. It’s understandable, and there certainly is room for a discussion. What I really like about this article is the approach one airline’s spokesman takes:
While [the internet] does provide a new access point for information and content, customers viewing inappropriate material on board a flight is not a new scenario for our crews who have always managed this issue with great success.
If people are allowed to take pornographic magazines onto a plane, or pornographic DVDs, or iPods full of pornographic movies, then there is no reason to filter pornographic web sites on a plane. I am a firm proponent of the idea that the internet only changes the game because we think it does; really, it’s just another means of distributing the same information we’ve always gotten.
(Although really, this airline’s policy isn’t about technology being viewed as I stubbornly insist it ought to be. It’s probably just too expensive to filter content on the plane.)