The other day I was watching a video series to review and write up for work in a Starbucks (with headphones I’m not a monster) — when one of the videos started and it was a straight up intense sex scene. I frantically began trying to close the window.
“I’m not watching porn!” I wanted to scream to everyone, but especially the nice woman behind me with whom I had felt a kinship with.
We were on a “I’ll watch your computer and purse while you go the bathroom”-basis before then — but now, all of that (close, close) friendship work was ruined. She thought I was the type of person who goes to Starbucks to watch softcore pornography. And it turns out, I’m not the only one (No, but like, really, I WASN’T WATCHING PORN, EVERYONE).
It’s enough of a problem that the coffee chain announced today that it’s unrolling a new tool to block access to porn (over its free WiFi network) in stores over the new year. According to Business Insider, the ban comes after increasing pressure from anti-pornography organization, Enough Is Enough, which this week, circulated a petition demanding Starbucks follow through on a 2016 promise to add blockers to filter explicit content.
The news is a real blow to men in trench coats and internet writers everywhere (who were really not watching porn in Starbucks, it WAS for an article I…they….swear). Looks like a few bad seeds ruined it for all of us. Thanks a lot, creeps!
In a statement, Starbucks said, “While it rarely occurs, the use of Starbucks public Wi-Fi to view illegal or egregious content is not, nor has it ever been permitted. We have identified a solution to prevent this content from being viewed within our stores and we will begin introducing it to our U.S. locations in 2019.”
I guess now if we want to watch porn, we have to do it the old fashioned way, by bringing in a large, bulky TV/VHS combo player we bought at a garage sale for a nickel into Starbucks, plugging it in, and then watching dozens of 1980s porn videos we found in the smoldering heap of a Family Video (which, for the name, did have a surprisingly large porn section). Or, you know, at home. Either way.
