Starbucks has announced that it will soon block access to porn websites via the company’s Wi-Fi network.
In January, Starbucks will introduce a content blocker that bans access to pornographic websites while using its free in-store Wi-Fi. Viewing porn at Starbucks has long been banned, but there was no mechanism in place to customers from viewing it.
The company is initiating the filter after pressure from an outside group that advocated for a porn site ban for years. Enough is Enough, a nonprofit dedicated to internet safety for children, launched a petition encouraging Starbucks to ban porn. It received more than 26,000 signatures.
The group wrote in its petition: “Starbucks is keeping the doors wide open for convicted sex offenders and patrons to fly under the radar from law enforcement and use free, public WiFi services to view or distribute graphic or obscene pornography, child pornography (an illegal crime), or engage in sexual predation activity.”
.A Starbucks spokesman told Business Insider: “To ensure the Third Place remains safe and welcoming to all, 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.”
Numerous studies have found that content blockers designed to filter out porn also disproportionately block non-pornographic sites related to LGBT issues and abortion.