NY Post Craps On NYC's Plan To Offer Free Wi-Fi — Because The Homeless Might Watch Porn
from the worry-wart dept
As you might have heard, New York City recently launched one of the biggest free Wi-Fi initiatives ever conceived. Under the program, some 7,500 Wi-Fi kiosks will provide gigabit Wi-Fi, free phone calls to anywhere in the country (via Vonage), as well as access to a device recharging station, 311, 911, 411 and city services (via an integrated Android tablet). The city is installing ten a day — most at old payphone locations — and hopes to have 500 of the kiosks in place by July. It’s a pretty impressive effort, and by most measures providing fast, free connectivity to the city’s five boroughs has been something to celebrate.
Unless you’re the New York Post, which decided to spend precious calories this week worrying about how the system potentially lets the city’s homeless population watch porn:
“…The plan badly backfired when scores of homeless men ? and some schoolchildren ? soon realized they could surf porn sites all day on the city?s dime using the communal Android-run tablets and gratis Wi-Fi.”
Of course the Post kind of floats over the amazing fact that the kiosks let everybody in the city access any information they want at any time, but the Post also fails to really offer any evidence that there’s waves upon waves of masturbating homeless brigands terrifying city residents. In fact the story proceeds to note that the company behind the initiative, LinkNYC, has already ramped up filtering of pornographic websites to at least make it a little more difficult. In fact there’s really not much of any meat to the clams the city’s plan “backfired” at all, outside of a quote from an indignant out of towner:
“I used to come here in the ?70s, and I remember thinking Times Square was as skeezy as you could get, but I was wrong,? said former New Yorker Richard Herzberg, 61, who now lives in Dallas, Texas. “This is as skeezy as Times Square could get. I mean, in the old days there was plenty of porn, but you could only see it behind closed doors. So at least there was that level of modesty.”
While the Post would apparently prefer it if we dismantled a useful, citywide Wi-Fi network to fix a nonexistent or relatively minor problem, it’s worth remembering that masturbating in public remains a criminal offense, making the fact that it’s happening at a free Wi-Fi pylon somewhat irrelevant. And while there’s an argument to be made for loss of city character as New York evolved from punk rock minefield to glorified shopping mall, city residents that remember the apocalyptic nature of 70s and 80s NYC likely see sporadic homeless porn consumption as the very least of the city’s worries.
Filed Under: free wifi, homeless, new york, nyc, porn, times square, wifi
Comments on “NY Post Craps On NYC's Plan To Offer Free Wi-Fi — Because The Homeless Might Watch Porn”
But...but... THE CHILDREN!!!!
OMG… the children! The children! Or wait… is this TERROR! TERROR!
I always forget which excuse we’re on…
Re: But...but... THE CHILDREN!!!!
The children are being terrorized!
There, that hits both just in case, right?
Re: Re: But...but... THE CHILDREN!!!!
What about guns. Don’t forget guns. You need to consider guns.
Now that there are guns that look like smart phones, if you stop smart phones from accessing porn, you stop guns from accessing porn. It’s a slippery slope leading to everyone’s guns being taken away. Or requiring law-abiding citizens to click an “I am 18” button before defending themselves from terrorists.
Re: Re: Re: But...but... THE CHILDREN!!!!
All smart phones look like guns, just ask the police, especially those who shoot anyone pulling their phone out.
So the conclusion should be that these kiosks are locations that will be stalked by police, looking for anyone who ‘moves their hands toward their waists’ or ‘pulls out a gun…erm cell phone’ or ‘acts suspiciously like they were going to corrupt the morals of a child’ or ‘seemed to be looking for child porn’ and then shoot them because it is always easier to search someone after they have been shot, and they complain less, at least initially.
Re: Re: Re: But...but... THE CHILDREN!!!!
The guns are being terrorized by children on smart phones!
I think? … I’m getting confused now.
Re: Re: But...but... THE CHILDREN!!!!
Re: Re: But...but... THE CHILDREN!!!!
No, No, No!
You gots it all wronggg, it’s da children dat is de terrorists, they terrorizing adults all ovah da nayboorhoodie. If youz gunna goz aftah da terrorizts, you must go aftah da childrensss. Deyz yellin n hollerin sometin feerst a boutz not bee inz ablez to axes dere larnin when diz free webs shtuff is turnid offz.
Re: But...but... THE CHILDREN!!!!
Well yes, think of the children. “Look at what happens to people who watch porn. He’s homeless now.”
If this isn’t moralicious, I don’t know what is.
Re: But...but... THE CHILDREN!!!!
Children, terrorism, file-sharing, drugs…
As long as the Taxpayers are not on the hook for the costs, who cares!!!
What the hell! A city government doing something for its non-rich citizens? Don’t they know that’s one of the signs of the apocalypse?
Re: Re:
Because NY has a super high tax rate, and giving out more freebies is not the job of the Government. Spreading the wealth is just government sponsored theft. In the end, the Taxpayers flee, which has been happening in N.Y.
Here’s something, Go to a Public Library. Free Internet, Free Everything. Doesn’t cost anyone a penny. How about N.Y. just take $20 from you every month and just hand it over to some random Poor person. You sure don’t seem to mind at all.
The so called POOR person in this country is far, far richer them the real poor people in other countries. If the Poor want stuff. Get a Education, a Job, stop popping out kids you can’t afford, etc. It’s not my responsibility to pay people to sit around on their butts, playing the Xbox and popping out kids. I work my butt of for what little money I get, being single and no kids, I get raped in taxes. My property Taxes are the same as the family of Mexican’s right across the street with a bunch of Kids and cars all over.
We had a Revolution in this country because of high taxes. Which was something in the single digits. When is enough, enough? It’s almost worth not working and just getting free everything. It really is at that point in many states. Cheap housing, free money, Free child care, free car, free phone, free health care, the list goes on and on.
Re: Re: Re:
Get a Education..
What? I can tell you must have skipped out on your own education, now didn’t you JBDragon.
HLMFtFY – “Get an education.”
You know, there’s a simple answer for all of this.
Place a 10% federal sales tax on stocks, bonds and futures from any stock market globally.
If an entity within the U.S. makes the purchase, the tax is applied at the time of the sale.
No more taxes on “capital gains”, no more tax breaks for “losses”. Every time a purchase occurs, boom, it is taxed.
If it is from a foreign stock exchange, an additional 5% is added, bringing it to a 15% tax rate.
If an entity tries to “hide” the purchase, an 85% penalty is added to the purchase once it has been exposed, bringing the tax to 100% of the purchase price, doubling the cost of the purchase.
Boom! End of our deficit, the poor will have plenty and the middle-income families will start to feel rich again.
Only the 1 percenters, the stock brokers, the financial institutions, like banks who play roulette with depositor’s money, will feel the pain in this.
Re: Re: Re:
Nice soapbox, shame it didn’t come with better propaganda.
Re: Re: Re:
Here’s something, Go to a Public Library. Free Internet, Free Everything. Doesn’t cost anyone a penny.
facepalm facedesk Ouch. Are… are you actually serious? I wonder, how do you think libraries are funded? Pixie dust and good feelings?
Re: Re: Re:
Try handing a homeless person a twenty and say “but on condition that you use it for educating yourself”. Now I am perfectly aware that your personal choice would be handing a homeless person the finger and say “but on condition that you starve because the U.S. is a great nation of self-made men. I was born without a penny and had to earn my food and education myself, every penny, on the streets in a land where you don’t get a job without a home and an education, and it did me good. And nobody thought it would be a good idea to help me in any way. I had to save for a year before I could buy my first hand gun.”
Re: Re: Re:
” Go to a Public Library. Free Internet, Free Everything. Doesn’t cost anyone a penny”
What about when the libraries close, isn’t this a better option? Does the library offer the same free phone calls these terminals do? Isn’t it better to have an automated console rather than having librarians waste their time on PC tech support, etc.?
“How about N.Y. just take $20 from you every month and just hand it over to some random Poor person. You sure don’t seem to mind at all.”
If you don’t understand the difference between offering a free service and handing over cash, you might want to take some of that library education yourself, at least until you understand how bad the cash idea would be compared to services rendered.
“We had a Revolution in this country because of high taxes.”
No, you had a revolution sparked by taxation without representation. Do you not understand the difference?
“It’s almost worth not working and just getting free everything.”
…if you’re living in poverty. If you don’t see the value to society of having people able to get education, child care, healthcare even if they can’t pay the full price yourself? Again, you might want to take advantage of some of that free education since what you’ve paid for hasn’t done you any good, it seems.
Old Man Yells at Cloud
news at 11
also, get off my lawn
Oh noz!
How long before we see accusations that an innocent city boy was able to be recruited by ISIS on free city wi-fi and now it’s all the cities fault? …because personal accountability doesn’t exist any more. Shame.
I’m from the media and I’m here to help.
So let me get this straight….
An old man who moved from NY to Dallas Texas is upset over the skeeziness of times square because he saw porn. Apparently this man is a shut in as I have only been to Dallas once and I could tell you where there are 9 strip clubs and porn shops all within a 3 block radias of where I was staying in downtown Dallas when I went there for training. And I only went to and from the building where my IT training was. I wasn’t rish enough to go to these places because they are focused on ball players but still. I had to shower when I got back to the hotel after seeing the people in those areas. Maybe he needs to lighten up or stop visiting NY
NYP is owned by Murdoch
so by definition its anti internet and freedoms
Let them watch porn!
So what if the homeless watch porn??? Better than them panhandling me, and it might make them want to live in a place where they can watch it and act on it in private, in peace!
Re: Let them watch porn!
But that would imply that the homeless are actual human beings deserving to be treated with the respect due to actual human beings. Madness, I tell you!
“it might make them want to live in a place where they can watch it and act on it in private”
I can guarantee you that vast majority of the homeless already seriously want a place to live even without the lure of private masturbation. Most of the homeless are not in that state because they want to be there.
Re: Re: Let them watch porn!
Did you know it’s actually cheaper to HOUSE homeless people than to punish them for being homeless? Madness, I know, but there you are.
Has the NY Post had many full page Comcast ads lately?
I doubt it is going to be a minor nuisance
I mean, get real: one of the biiig Internet bandwidth hogs is porn, possibly even more so than spam.
It’s unrealistic to assume that the usage patterns would be significantly different with homeless people. Usually they are without a fixed occupation either but also have to be prepared to be on the move. So short-attention-span entertainment is quite likely a reasonable fit.
What makes it, of course, is the lack of a private environment. This is what they have to deal with constantly, so they might get sort-of numb to it. Maybe it will let the better-off invest more thought in how one can provide the homeless with a bit more temporary privacy and shelter.
Re: I doubt it is going to be a minor nuisance
“I mean, get real: one of the biiig Internet bandwidth hogs is porn”
Setting aside the misleading term “hogs”, this is something that isn’t nearly as true as it used to be. The biggest user of bandwidth now, by a longshot, is Netflix (around 35%). YouTube is #2. If you combine the top 3 porn sites, some statistics place that in the #3 position, but most place it lower down in the top 10.
Re: Re: I doubt it is going to be a minor nuisance
I think torrents is up there high on the list. While you hear “The Internet is PORN!” I don’t think it’s in the top 10, let alone the top 5.
Really, who cares. These so call POOR people have Smartphones to watch PORN in the first place? Really, so called Poor people in this country are not Poor! Look at Poor people in other countries, now THEY’RE Poor!!!
Must be part of the Free Obama Phone plans. So it’s really OBAMA that’s allowing the homeless to watch porn on their Smartphones with the free Wifi.
Re: Re: Re: I doubt it is going to be a minor nuisance
According to the story, the homeless are using communal tablets, not their own personal smartphones.
That the poor in the US are better off than the poor in some other countries in meaningless. People in the US still die every day as a direct result of being poor. Every winter in my area, there are homeless people who literally die of exposure on the city streets. Homeless people in the US die of starvation. Homeless people (as well as poor people who have homes) in the US die due to lack of medical care.
Not sure why you bring up Obama, though. He doesn’t factor into this at all.
Re: Re: Re:2 I doubt it is going to be a minor nuisance
Not sure why you bring up Obama, though. He doesn’t factor into this at all.
It’s a nervous tick. You know, some people tap their feet, some people OBAMA IS A COMMUNIST! …uh, er, sorry about that.
Re: Re: Re:2 I doubt it is going to be a minor nuisance
Obama factors into a whole lot less that you’d expect an elected president to, particularly viewed in light of both his campaign promises and nominal powers. A reverse Rick Blaine (campaign promise: “I stick my head out for nobody.”) if you want to.
Round up the usual suspects.
Re: Re: Re:2 I doubt it is going to be a minor nuisance
Obama is a right wing punchbag despite the fact that he’s a neocon authoritarian. Right wingers today are actually far to the right of where Reagan was in the Eighties, they just can’t bring themselves to admit it.
Re: Re: Re:3 I doubt it is going to be a minor nuisance
“far to the right of where Reagan was” implies that Reagan was somewhere in his own right. Now his team was really really afraid of the times where he was speaking for himself because he was not as much “far to the right” as downwards, namely digging himself in a hole.
But most of the time he was acting before a blue screen (or rather red screen), leaving the details to be edited in to the directors.
Why do people with a major public platform always think that they can impose their morals on everybody else?
Re: Re:
Somebody’s morals have to win.
Re: Re: Re:
Why, as that is the route to conflict, while agreeing to differ leads to peaceful coexistence.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not true. If your morals say you should kill the infidels it definitely infringes on my morals of my morals of thou shalt not commit murder, especially of me. Ultimately, somebody’s morals will be pushed into others.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Which is why people should follow the laws of this country and the constitution. Not whoever’s Moral’s.
Homeless with Internet, such priorities.
Such priorities. Now the homeless can do Twitter and Facebook while urinating on the sidewalk. We now officially feel good ’cause we gave homeless people Internet when there’s a whole host of other things that would be much more useful/helpful.
Re: Homeless with Internet, such priorities.
It’s an excellent strategy: now everybody will want them to have privacy oh my goodness.
Re: Homeless with Internet, such priorities.
You seem to be under the impression that the WiFi was put in place to benefit the homeless. No worries it was really put in for us rich people with homes and phones..
Possible upside
Thinking long-term, and trying for positive emergent outcomes:
Everyone likes porn (come on….)
So I bet a lot of non-homeless folks will be watching porn on the network too. Keeps it off their home networks, etc.
This isn’t a bi deal because they are rubbing it out in private. Those people likely won’t support an overbroad filter on the public wi-fi, because.. .porn!
So, it then turns out there really is a problem with the homeless self-pleasuring on the street with their new visual aids.
Solution?
Get them all homes!
They ‘re off the street, and everyone enjoys free-wi-fi and porn in blissful privacy.
People still read American propaganda, how amusing. Sounds like it might be a case for the Bureau to look into, seeing as how it is rumored they have shuttered their child pornography web site.
So my question is when did the homeless start getting cell phones and tablets donated to them? Where are all these on line homeless coming from? I mean to see porn on the street because some homeless has access and hardware just amazes me the event could take place in the first place, not to mention how many homeless would have to be in Times Square before everyone was exposed to porn?
As far as city services making access to wifi possible for the homeless, how does the NY Post figure homeless stop being homeless without a method to contact them to find other city services as well as finding out about jobs and opportunities that could lead to them not being homeless anymore? It looks to me like being homeless is more desirable to the NY Post than having a method to change it. In reflection it sounds like they are the supporters of large crowds of homeless because of the lack of ability to contact the world at large to learn of methods of change, means they will remain homeless while more join their ranks.
Obliviously The New York Post is yet to learn that porn exists on the internet since they had to go to Times Square and lean over some homeless to find it.
DO YOU REALLY WANT PRIVACY??
#1 with a Rocket to the moon..
WOW, do you want privacy?
Do you want a conversation RECORDED?
Do you want your Net traffic Taced??
HOW about being able to WATCH you as you travel past EACH and EVERY KIOSK…
I wonder if there are builtin Cameras..and isometrics..
PICTURE PLEASE..
SCAN completed, NO BOMB, 2 Phones, 1 tablet, and Possible Cancer detected..
Visionary G. B. Trudeau
Here is a classical Doonesbury sequence about Safe Whoopee.
There is an intermission week of Wall Street strips, but after that the key slogan gets presented as
“Condos. Use them in good health.”
29 years before today. If that’s not porn for the homeless, I don’t know what is.
Deeper pockets
Cue the woman suing for the porn search records.
Were they just pissed that they offered Paywall skipping?
Post Schmost
The Post has plenty of money. Why doesn’t it help the homeless by getting them shelter? That’s better than free porn for people who can’t afford cell phones anyway.