With the onset of in-flight WiFi access, more and more passengers will want to be able to work and play on the internet en-route to their holiday destination. This brings new challenges for airlines and one of those challenges is how they deal with filtering out inappropriate websites.
I am no prude, but I would not want to be sat next to someone who is watching or looking at pornographic material on his or her laptop next to me. What someone does in their home is none of my business but in a small public environment like an airplane, it should not be allowed.
Airlines agree with filtering porn
Whilst doing some research for this post, I found that initially American Airlines refused to install an internet filter to block porn sites in flight. This decision seems to have changed as more pressure is put on them from their own staff. Delta who are launching their in-flight WiFi later this year have said that they will filter out inappropriate websites.
Where do you draw the line
Some websites might not be pornographic but carry different levels of nudity; do you filter these sites from being viewed as well? You have to feel sorry for the airline crew; they now have to deal with passengers using their mobile phone excessivly and monitor what people are viewing on their laptop.
I am interested to hear your thoughts on this issue.
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Kelsey | 2 November, 2008 at 1:30 am
I agree, it’s rude to the other passengers and totally inapporpriate in public places.
Andy Hayes | 2 November, 2008 at 1:58 am
Completely agree with Kelsey, although can see an (inebriated) passenger demanding that since they’ve paid for the service they can browse as they see fit.
Karen Bryan | 2 November, 2008 at 11:13 am
Darren, it would be awful to be sitting beside someone who was watching porn on their laptop.
Garri | 2 November, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Yes, it’s rude, especially when they don’t let me have a sneaky peek too 
Darren Cronian | 3 November, 2008 at 2:12 am
I agree with you all, it would not be nice to see, and I am surprised it took staff to complain on American Airlines before they did something about it. The other problem though is how far do you go with filtering out sites?
Theres sites that are not adult, but have part nudity, would they filter this out? Some people might not be offended, some might be.
Nomadic Matt | 3 November, 2008 at 2:54 am
Porn does go over the line. Its like the time i was in an internet cafe and this guy was watching porn…its just a little too much…
Nancie | 3 November, 2008 at 3:31 am
Personally, I think that airlines should err on the side of caution and simply block anything they feel is objectionable. Yes, they will have a lot of complaints. If people were capable of policing themselves this would not be an issue. Like drinking alcohol on planes, how much is too much? Everyone will have a different opinion.
Andrew | 3 November, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I am sure that there are well established procedures for dealing with passengers reading offensive or pornographic magazines and these procedures should be able to deal with similar material being displayed on laptops.
Of course, a web filter will help – but what about the passenger viewing a pornographic DVD – or viewing previously downloaded material.
Ultimately, it will devolve onto the cabin crew to deal with these matters.
Stevo | 4 November, 2008 at 7:09 am
I’ll play devil’s advocate to you goody-two-shoes.
With the price of air tickets I should be able to watch whatever I want. There should be a pole and dancers in the coach section, and lap dances in first class.
Web filters accomplish nothing. There are a thousand ways around them.
Darren Cronian | 4 November, 2008 at 1:55 pm
@ All
Great points.
@ Stevo
I am not sure about poles and pole dancers, maybe you might get that on a future A380 airplane though? I wasn’t sure that there are ways around webfilters, I am not techie enough to know that.
Kelsey | 4 November, 2008 at 5:57 pm
You know, it’s sad that people have had to complain about this in the first place. What is the world coming to?
Erica | 4 November, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Am a bit late to this discussion, but I completely agree. If someone next to me on the plane was watching porn I would politely, but resolutely, ask him or her to turn it off.
Darren Cronian | 4 November, 2008 at 6:31 pm
@ Erica
Me too, and if they didn’t I’d ask a crew member to do it, which puts them under more pressure unfortunately.
@ Kelsey
I agree.
Murray Harrold | 4 November, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Flippant remark, Bonk Air anyone?
I think you would have to be pretty brazen to sit in a ‘plane with full on porn running on your laptop. As far as censorship is concerned, bear in mind that the aeroplane must be THE most cosmopolitan place on the planet.
How on earth are you going to decide what will or will not offend someone from any one of our world’s religions, creeds and cultures? Can you imgaine the field day lawyers will have, suing airlines for telephone number figures as, for example, “my child witnessed a teacup being broken on a laptop and as we are from the cult of the great teapot of man, blah, blah…” bit extreme but you get the point. Best ’twere, perhaps, that things are left as they are….
Darren Cronian | 4 November, 2008 at 7:03 pm
@ Murray
I visit You Tube. [Not that I suggesting I watch this type of video] but if I was watching two cute cat’s fight your right someone could take offence. It opens up a whole big can of worms, and not just pornographic ones.
Caitlin | 4 November, 2008 at 7:15 pm
It would be awful to sit next to someone who is watching porn but there’s nothing to stop it happening now – a passenger could easily play a pornographic DVD on their laptop or read a pornographic magazine. I think filtering is too heavy-handed and would result in a lot of innocent websites getting caught up, not to mention sending out the wrong message about censorship.
Can’t the airlines just deal with it if the issue arises, as they would currently for the DVD or magazine? Truth to say, I think it’s a bit of a non-issue. I can’t imagine the problem would actually arise that often as the vast majority of people would not want to watch porn on an airline. Even for people who like that kind of thing, it’s generally a private activity, often one that they even keep from their spouses.
A common sense approach would be to leave it open and monitor what people actually watch (in aggregate of course, not invading privacy). If after a trial period, they discover porn watching is rampant rather than the totally rare exception, then they could rethink the approach.
Andrew | 4 November, 2008 at 7:22 pm
It is entirely wrong for a person to be watching it, but it is important to keep individual responsibility. Creating rules, blocking sites, etc, only takes responsibility away from individuals to behave and find a way around it.
Don’t block it, just throw the individuals off the plain if they are caught.
MarkH | 9 November, 2008 at 12:22 am
It is difficult to know where to draw the line. Porn is the easy one but passengers may equally find images/websites of whale hunting, bullfighting, extreme politics and various other sites also very upsetting.
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18 responses to “No in-flight porn please”