Apple Plans Anti-Sexting Controls

Parental controls exist for television, computers … why not cell phones? Apple is looking for a way to ban “sexting” once and for all with a new patent approved yesterday. Officially, it's called “text-based communication control for personal communication device,” but we all know what Apple is referring to, writes Alexia Tsotsis on TechCrunch. The patent, filed in 2008, will prevent sending or receiving “objectionable” text messages.

As the patent points out, there is currently “no way to monitor and control text communications to make them user appropriate.” One proposed solution is parental controls that would prevent inappropriate text, based on the user’s age, from being included in messages—and could even alert parents. Does this spell the end for sexting? Probably not, as those crafty teens “will probably find some clever workaround to express how much they want to bang, screw, hit it or a myriad of other words that don’t immediately set off the censorship sensors.”
(More sexting stories.)