Between Elsewhere and Here

In-Flight XXX

Flight Attendant

While I’ve been waiting for the inevitable roll-out of cell phone use on airplanes (something I am dreading), I totally missed American Airlines offering WiFi for their passengers. Personally, I think this is great. My job is tied directly to the internet and I find myself rushed in airports to finish up an email or a graphic or a blog post before boarding a flight. A few months ago, when I was returning from Netroots Nation in Austin, I had to frantically update a client’s website before my flight left or the world was going to end – or at least that’s the impression they gave me.

But if I had been on American, and I’d been flying between JFK and San Francisco, LA or Miami since August 20th, I would have had the pleasure of using in-flight WiFi. And yes, I mean pleasure. For you see, as my crafty headline alludes to, there have been some predictable issues with in-flight WiFi. Namely, fliers are browsing porn sites. There are no specific accounts in any of the tails I can find. But flight attendants are “worried” about passengers viewing naughty stuff while miles high.

This isn’t exactly a new issue. New technology maybe, but same story. We’ve all heard the stories over the years of people (ahem, men) being told to not read their Playboys, Penthouses or Maxims while in flight (then why sell them in the airport?). I’ve seen people watching adult DVDs on the train so I have no doubt that it has happened on flights. Playboy, and other less respectable providers, have adult content for iPods and other mobile devices. And yet, somehow, when it’s wireless internet, people start making a big deal about it.

Suddenly “the person sitting next to you or your child is viewing explicit porn” as if that couldn’t have happened before WiFi. If you’re sitting next to a person who is viewing porn on their laptop while flying, they probably didn’t the excuses of WiFi to looked at naked ladies. Not that I’m defending said person, I just mean to point out that it’s not WiFi’s fault that Mr. Hands-in-his-pockets is looking at porn. You know, if he really really do wants to watch porn, he could just fly Naked Air and leave the rest of us browse in peace.

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By Christopher on 09/15/08 07:28 PM | | Link | Comments [0]

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