mobile phone links to pornography

[karen1s]

A warning to parents. Orange has an Android phone, available to all at £10.00 per month called San Francisco (currently available online and in stores). It has a television app, which is pre-installed and cannot be removed. It provides any phone user, regardless of age, direct links to pornographic photos and images. The Babe Zone/Top Babe and Hunk Vault do not have an 18+ rating and provide direct access via internet or wi fi to explicit imagery. After many phone calls and visits to the store and an email to to the UK CEO, I have now managed to cancel my contract and returned the phone, but I would like to warn others against buying this phone for their children.

Thanks for the warning.

It's frustrating how ubiquitous porn is these days, how hard one has to work to NOT access it.

I agree

if it is £10 per month surly it is a contract phone, which can not be bought by under 18

but lots of people buy thier children/teens contract phones and dont know whats on it.

If your teen is going to go looking for porn, they are going to look at porn, and really there is very very little that you can do about it, other than tell your child that porn is not what happens in real life relationships.

Agreed squeakytoy

If your child is old enough to be trusted with a contract phone, they're probably old enough to want to look for porn.

you can set up parental controls on internet

but lots of people buy thier children/teens contract phones and dont know whats on it.

if you buy a kid a phone with internet access and dont set it up properly, you are giving them full rein to browse whatever they like

So squeakytoy, by your logic, all teenagers use their phones to look at porn, therefore Orange are just making their lives easier?

What about those who have no wish to see pornographic images and would be offended or even damaged by it?

And according to the OP, the link can't be removed anyway.

The point I wanted to emphasise is that this phone is directly linked to these sites and you cannot delete the app. As soon as you press the tv app it takes you to these links. The babe zone and hunk zone do not have an 18 rating and the phone user is taken to explicit images without even searching for them. I had set parental controls and restricted access to wi fi ie. no Internet access so that home parental controls could be enforced. Without an 18 rating they are not filtered out.

Depends on your definition of explicit.

Tits are not explicit, nor are women in panties/thongs.

Explicit is a legs open shot with fingers parting the fanny lips and no knickers on.

Now that is explicit.

Thank you for providing your definition of explicit. I had hoped for some contributions from parents concerned about protecting their children and perhaps some meaningful debate about multi national corporations that perpetuate misogyny and the negative impact it has on us all. Am I being unreasonable? I was thinking more Moran less Whitehouse and certainly not crass.

No, FabbyChic is, as usual. Even if it wasn't a direct link to explicit porn (and your OP suggests it is) it's the same principle as holding the view that wankrags papers like the Sport shouldn't have been displayed at child's eye view in a newsagent.

I agree with squidybiscuit and squeakytoy, if teenagers want to look at porn (and they generally will, whether you like it or not) they will be able to. Even if you had the means to control settings on their phone, do you not think that teenage lads share these images with their friends? Have access to DVD's they pass around to each other etc? Whether right or wrong pornography is very accessible in today's society and it's therefore more important/effective to teach your them the value of real relationships and how this is different from what they see in pornography.

I assume these "children" who have contract mobile phones are teenagers? If so, I would bet money that they have watched porn that would probably shock you.

... Studies have shown that practices such as anal sex are massively on the rise amongst teenagers, I imagine this is very much linked to the rise in porn and teenagers view of what "normal" sex is. Sex education and info about STI's is important too, rather than denying your childs knowledge of an area you find taboo.

... I mean something you feel should be taboo for your child - not suggesting everyone is a sexual prude!!