Apple is blocking 'Asian' and 'teen' searches, assuming it's porn
What's the story
Apple offers a number of parental control features to keep kids away from things they are not supposed to access, like pornographic content, for instance. The features come handy, but a new report suggests that Apple is enforcing them to such a degree that even terms like 'Asian' and 'teen' are being flagged/blocked for porn. Here's all about it.
Issue
Adult content filter struggling to define what to block
According to Charlie Stigler, the principal product strategist for Workday, the adult content filter built into the Screen Time setting of iPhones carries a weird problem. He enabled the feature on his iPhone 8 and noted that it blocks most, if not all, searches associated with keywords 'teen' and 'Asian' - assuming them to be something related to porn.
Details
Only for specific keywords
Stigler noted that almost every search involving the word 'Asian' - be it Asian history, Asian food, or Asian sports - was blocked by Safari. The same was the case for the word 'teen', with the strategist not being able to search for innocuous things like "teen mental health resources". Now, this indicates that Apple is using these keywords as filters to flag/block porn.
Problem
This stops people from learning about their culture, Stigler emphasized
Evidently, Stigler highlighted the problem with such a technique - people cannot search for general things using the keywords in question. "A 12 y/o Chinese-American girl might Google 'Asian hairstyles' and find out that her culture is blocked as 'adult content'," he wrote on Twitter while calling out Apple to correct the poor implementation of the keyword blacklist for parental controls.
Twitter Post
Here's the tweet from him
Searches like "teen mental health resources" are also blocked, because "teen" is on the blacklist. Which is so dumb for a feature that's probably being used BY TEENS!
— Charlie Stigler (@charliestigler) February 18, 2020
Solution
How to bypass this weird restriction?
The problem has been spotted on the latest version of iOS. But, as there is no word from Apple on the matter, the only way you can deal with this is by turning the adult content filter off. To do that, head over to Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Content Restrictions > Web Content and disable Limit Adult Websites.