Parents complain Amazon's Kindle Fire gives kids access to porn, accounts - Page 2

Mommy, what are these two men doing to each other? OMG give me that. Wife to husband. We are going to return this tablet.

If Apple had pulled a trick like that, there would be the most incredible sh**-storm over it. The blogs would be demanding that Apple pull the product, NOW!

Does anyone here think that's going to happen to Amazon?

I think that Amazon will continue to do nothing about it since it directly serves their only reason for making the Fire in the first place, leading to the eventual discontinuation of the device after complaints (and even lawsuits) about this specific problem become overwhelming.

No it will not happen to Amazon.

Its not FAIR!

I dunno. Doesn't he stomp on the boy at the end of the movie? Seems only natural ending to that story. But I've never seen that it. That's my excuse in case I'm wrong.

Exactly. Everytime there is the smallest issue with anything Apple related, it will be blown up all over the place and people will be going nuts. The sharks, trolls and Apple haters will start coming out and it will be a feeding frenzy and they will try to make it into the biggest scandal of the century, when it is usually no big deal at all and a total non-issue.

And here we even have people saying that this Kindle Fire issue shouldn't even be reported!

If the family is in a car, how do they stream a R rated movie from internet? Uh, no wi-fi internet in the car. Hotspot?

Take away the hotspot, problem solved.

Avoid accidental purchases - turn off the wi-fi. Problem solved. Though then you couldn't surf the web.

The web is a Dangerous Environment for children.

Maybe they should call their browser Silk Stalkings.

What do you expect from a company that knows nothing about hardware and software? You get a crappy iPad clone with limited features and capabilites with horrible quality and lack of detail. Like i said before, going to be a lot of returns on these horrible devices.

Liking Android to me doesn't mean I have to dislike Apple products...I do not dislike Apple products at all...I prefer Android.

You seem to be unable to differentiate preference from "hating all things not my preference" but for the more mature among us such a distinction is simple to make.

I've got no issue with it being reported. My problem is that the reporting is not objective. AI is only reporting negative aspects of the Kindle Fire, despite the device being rather well-received overall.



They suck no more or less than obsessive Apple fans. As I've suggested previously, unwavering devotion to any multinational corporation is ridiculous and illogical.



I do like Apple and Apple products. Why should this mean that I cannot like competitors' products as well? There is a thin line between being a fan of a product and not taking any criticism of it, and you are on the wrong side of it.

That is true. Amazon has no experience at all in either software or hardware.

They have experience in selling stuff on a website.

I honestly think the non Apple industry looks at it in a way that you bought it you deal with it. Kinda like buying a car. Would you let your 10 year old drive it? They think there should be some sort of parent monitoring. But Apple has done better. They have controls built into the IOS iPad to keep this from happening.

One of the uglier one-star themes from some Fire reviewers on Amazon (and they make up about 1/6 of the reviews) involves the fact that if you order the Fire from Amazon, the device comes pre-registered. One gentleman in particular came home to his Fire box empty on his doorstep and his account blitzed.

All images are legally accessible to anyone if they are in a neural format - ie. your brain. Just wait until there are brain-robot interfaces.... anything you can imagine will be accessible (think Tek War), and nobody will be able to function in society without such devices. The excuses we have not to scan people's brains for thought crimes (such as your mind being a sacred place) won't mean anything when the same data is already banned in forms like bytes on a hard drive or Magic Eye posters.

News flash! Appleinsider is not a news site. It is a rumor site...and opinionated biased reports make for much livelier discussion boards.

Nope. Two females, 19 and 14, smart and healthy, if I do say so myself : ) My point is you either buy this widget which offers some things you want and some you don't, or you don't buy it. You either tell your kids to not do something and accept what happens when they do it anyway, or you don't.

Your kids might do something excessive with a loophole they've figured out, and if they buy $5,000 worth of porn you simply ream them out and then when they're out of earshot have a good laugh. It's all part of the package. There are no guarantees with this stuff. She wants half of the package, like email with zero spam or winters with no storms. What I meant is that there some things you just have to accept the possibility of once you let something be a part of your family and if you don't accept it, don't let it in. I don't buy into the notion that she has anything to complain about. It's not a kids toy. Why is it Amazon's fault she isn't having them play DVDs on a portable DVD player instead?

Parents think they can buy the latest 'whatever' gadgets for their kids and forget about monitoring their activities. Pretty stupid, but also pretty common.

Yes, I've noticed that.


I happen to think that Android is garbage, and that is a totally valid opinion. I am passionate about tech products that I use, and don't pretend that you aren't, otherwise you wouldn't spend time posting and visiting such forums.

time for a class action lawsuit. it is incredibly incompetent and irresponsible for Amazon not to require an activation confirmation with password. heck you have to do that just to comment on some blogs!

I would call this article a troll.
For Apple fans with less (than 4GB) memory, Apple updated their privacy policy silently somewhere around March of this year to say content can be purchased without needing for Apple account password for 15 minutes and the users agree for that. Did they do it for parental concerns? I wish they had. It was a result of a lawsuit. Check the updates around iOS4.3. May be, Kindle too will come across one before they update their s/w. But I doubt if they will do any updates before end of holiday season. Any new bug can potentially harm the holiday season, especially with so many bashers around.
Like one of the readers mentioned, it looks like this site is built to 'praise the lord' and bash everyone else as satans.
I own quite a few apple products myself, including the latest MBP (that I'm typing on). I have a Kindle and I have an iOS device to compare the security features. People who complain may not know the use of screen lock with passcode feature, or may be they want to find a reason to buy a device that forces screened content to be pushed only via one approved s/w gateway.

Let aesthetics not fool you into becoming a blind follower of a monopolistic company!

If your kids are downloading porn and abusing your credit card, you the parent are the only one to blame.

WRONG! what you're saying is it is ok for any business to sell dangerous or unsafe or insecure products, and it's 100% the consumer's fault for being dumb or careless enuff to buy them if they get hurt by it.

go back to the 19th Century, ok? those were the rules in those days.

There is practically no such thing as truly objective reporting.

I visit Apple sites and not other sites, so that I can be free from retarded people and filthy Fandroids that troll their comment sections. There's a reason why I don't bother to read what the morons write in the comments section on sites like Engadget for example.


You're totally mistaken if you think that I have an unwavering devotion to any corporation.


That is merely your opinion.

I'm passionate about Android...because I like it...but when I post on XDA, AndroidCommunity, TheVerge Android forums, etc I do not demean users of iOS, WP7, BBOS, etc etc etc...

I do not feel superior somehow because some brand (or in my case brands) of tech appeals to me. I do not forcibly insert anti-"anything I don't like" rants into otherwise benign conversations. I do not do any of this. You do...often unprovoked.

I don't give a sh!t about this Windows 7 computer I'm on or the Mac OSX 10.6.8 PC I use at work. I do like Windows explorer better than Mac Finder but as far as preferential difference goes that's it.

I am here because of AppleInsiders insistence of running Android centric articles and thus populating my RSS feeds. I joined because of comments from the likes of you or the insane amount of misinformation spit forth by the writers and commenters.

I am here because of the irrational worship of Apple products and the late great Steven Jobs and the fact that such fanaticism always sets me off (religion especially).

I am here because of how a lot of you treat Apple as if they are infallible...as if everything said is inerrant (can't count how many times I've seen comments start with "well Steve said" as if that actually means anything and I've even had to point out that Steve said and thought some things which probably shortened his life significantly which is unfortunate IMO)

I do not always agree with Apple...legally I disagree more than I agree. I've openly supported a majority of their claims against Samsung but the other cases seem iffy and excessive to me.

So to summarize...being passionate about a tech purchase is fine...go for it...have fun...I know many many Apple lovers and I do not see how any sane individual can blame them. But Apple isn't the be all end all...Apple isn't some inerrant being worthy of any sort of worship. Apple doesn't make you better or make your dick bigger. Apple is tech...

That's it.

/semi-coherent rant.

What are parents with young children doing with a tablet anyway? I thought having children was a one way ticket to the poor house.

If it walks like a duck...and talks like a duck...

Allow me to quote the esteemed SpamSandwich, who summed up my post very concisely:

"Parents think they can buy the latest 'whatever' gadgets for their kids and forget about monitoring their activities. Pretty stupid, but also pretty common."

We're not talking about a box that explodes into a million poisonous shards when touched in the wrong place. It's a gateway to an internet merchant, for cryin' out loud.

Plus, they bought a gateway to Amazon and its products. They didn't buy The My Little Pony Speak and Spell video game. Don't let the kids watch TV and then complain about what they watch, every day for ten years.

The best parental control is a parent.

How does one report an egregious flaw that many people will consider unacceptable, in a "balanced way"? This isn't Wikipedia! AI isn't trying to offer some patsy overview of the tablet market. They're repotting a story. It's news that Amazon released a tablet that is unsafe for kids, when its main value is (according to most reviews) a cheap iPad-alternative you can give to your kids.

Also, the "Apple fan community" only has "a bad name" among members of the "non-Apple fan community."

Seriously, what a stupid thing to write. Do you also complain on every damn Gizmodo post that what they're saying is negative and not balanced in a universally ecumenical sort of way? STFU

Or, you know, a digital device with the basic software functionality of being locked down or having its auto-shop feature disabled.

If this were an Apple product, it would be Pornogate and Al Franken would be investigating.

The only feature of the Kindle Fire that has been well received is its $199 price.

Well, you shouldn't take personally whatever I say about Fandroids, because my comments are targeted towards the filthy people, like the ones on Engadget and other sites, and there are certainly many of those kinds of Fandroids around. There's even a few infiltrators on this site.

And yes, good riddance! For those of us truly interested in all things apple, like protecting our stock investment, the competitive landscape is extremely important. As it is in advising our friends and family about the wisdom of their purchases or intended purchases. It is also equally important to those in the development community who might be considering developing for other platforms as well. Since you show up as a member since "November, 2011" you have hardly "loved this blog" for very long - you sound more like a troll who has no clue what the apple market is all about. So take a walk, you won't be missed.

Yep, that's the main reason that some people are liking that so-called tablet. It's all about the cheap price. These people do not care about quality or features, they care about their broke wallet.

This I can agree with and it is annoying as hell...doesn't happen often on Android centric sites ironically...but on tech blogs like Engadget it happens far too often.

And I don't take anything as personally as it seems. My family is really passionate about essentially pointless shit. You should see us argue over the last slice of pizza. lol.

Not entirely true...but the price is why it's selling relatively well.

The Kindle fire is the ONLY tablet I've heard someone speak about in the "real world" aside from the iPad.

You are in no position to talk about an unwavering devotion for something.

You are much more fanatical, since you admit that you prefer Android, yet you choose to constantly visit an Apple site.

You sound ridiculous by accusing me of being an Apple fan on an Apple site.

If I were half as fanatical as you were, I would be on Android forums trying to spread the Apple gospel. As a matter of fact, I don't give a shit what they talk about on those forums.

Well, I wouldn't say that it's the parents' fault necessarily, but it sure is a different issue than the controls on the device they used to order it. If they want it, they'll find it, and if you lock yours down and they are determined to do it they'll do it from a friend's.

Device controls can be a good thing, but they solve only one aspect of a larger issue: they move the cookie jar higher. They don't make anything go away.