Discord for iOS will block users from accessing all NSFW servers | Hacker News Reader

Discord for iOS will block users from accessing all NSFW servers

9to5mac.com

24 pointsNotPractical6 comments

> If your app includes user-generated content from a web-based service, it may display incidental mature “NSFW” content, provided that the content is hidden by default and only displayed when the user turns it on via your website.

What's strange is that Discord seems to fit this description perfectly. NSFW servers are not advertised from within the app itself; you must leave the app and explicitly search for them.

Isn't it possible for iOS to know how old you are based on your profile?

Surely they could have by now built a way for 18+ services to exist, and frankly how could they not have by now, given apps like Tinder?

Would it just be a liability problem if they started trying to figure out how old its users are?

Steve Jobs was extremely puritanical and considered protection from the very existence of porn to be one of the few most notable goals of the app store (and I am not being sarcastic or hyperbolic: he seriously once used the phrase "freedom from porn").

> Yup, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash you battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin’, and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is.

> When questioned about Apple’s role as moral police in the App Store, Jobs responds that “we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone.” Better, is what he said next: “Folks who want porn can buy and [sic] Android phone.”

https://techcrunch.com/2010/04/19/steve-jobs-android-porn/am...

https://fortune.com/2010/05/16/steve-jobs-freedom-from-porn/...

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/551722/amp

https://medium.com/@brianshall/the-greatest-legacy-of-steve-...

http://gawker.com/5539717/steve-jobs-offers-world-freedom-fr...

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/steve-jobs-why-he-h...

One theory going around is that, since they want to charge for Nitro and other things in the app and go through app store billing, they can't have adult content (whereas a free app with no mtx can presumably get away with more risque content).

Sounds reasonable, but I don't know the current landscape of iOS development well enough to say if that makes sense.

Apple seems to be unwittingly making Epic's case in their antitrust case, and helping to justify the need for independence and separation of distribution, curation, payment processing, and operating system.

I know payments networks can get funny with payments that go to anyone doing anything not in line with their puritan views, but webs of intermediaries usually tend to resolve that issue.

What about apps like Reddit though? Don't they have IAP for their tokens or things you can give users, but also feature 18+ communities? This does seem to be an uneven application of the rules.

Parental controls on Apple devices already let you set per-app screen time limits.

It seems to me you could easily if-gate content loading with a system API call to check that level of content is permitted.

This would even make sense for things like Netflix, who could show age-appropriate content based on the setting. There's already an Apple ID setting for appropriate age content in any case. It seems like there's just a need for an API to use it.

I don't think it's a liability issue - parents are presumably expected to enable these controls. It isn't the job of the device to try and enforce the child's age, it's the job of the parent to set the "threshold level", and then Apple can simply require apps announce any threshold changes (or query to see the allowed threshold).

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