Steve Jobs doesn't know what freedom is.

There was a recently publicized email exchange between Steve Jobs and Gawker Media's Ryan Tate where Steve Jobs said that the iPad offered:

“...freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn..."


Let’s look at the definition of Freedom from the built in dictionary in the Mac OS.

The very first item:

“the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint”


Further down in the definition we get:

“unrestricted use of something”



Mr. Job’s statement about offering freedoms is an oxymoron.  Those things aren't freedoms.  Exactly the opposite, in fact. They are restrictions.

Book burners could say the same thing.  They are offering freedom from smut/heresy/anything-the-book-burner-disagrees-with. Just as one example from the thousands in history, there have been church groups that had book burnings to offer freedom from Harry Potter books

Censorship is not freedom. it is the exact opposite.

Don't get me wrong.  It's Apple's platform and they can do with it what they will.  I appreciate the precautions that they take in order to give the majority of their customers the best experience possible, but let's be honest here.  It's not freedom!

I can only hope that Mr. Jobs doesn’t expand the list of things he wants to offer me freedom from. It’s not a far leap from porn to erotica to classic art containing nudes. Nor is it outside the realm of possibility that he might want to offer me freedom from political satire, or from religious books that aren’t in line with his religion.

Mr. Jobs, I understand your desire to keep apps off the platform that will make it function in a less than optimal way. There is no question that it’s a good thing to block apps that use resources poorly draining the battery or apps that are insecure and put my data at risk.

But how about not censoring content that the government says I legally have the right to consume?