Who watches the watchers? Content policing at 30,000 feet.

Back in December there was a story about the coming introduction of in-flight wi-fi internet access on US carriers. It appears that introduction has arrived and, as I mentioned when I wrote about it, the airlines are having to deal with social aspects of internet access that are proving far more challenging than the technical ones. American Airlines is going to deal with the social problems with a social solution: they’re going to rely on passengers to complain to the flight attendants.

With the nation’s airlines rolling out in-flight wireless Internet service, and with little if any guidelines established to regulate usage, flight attendants will be in charge of maintaining in-cabin decorum.

If the person sitting next to you or your child is viewing explicit porn and you’re not happy about it, feel free to direct your complaint to the flight attendant.

It’s certainly a direct approach and it has the benefit of using a “system” (the flight attendants) that’s already aboard the plane and doesn’t require any additional power to run. There are a number of downsides to this, however.

First, the FA’s are already tasked with other stuff. Between the safety items and the service items, I’m not sure there’s enough bandwidth – if you’ll pardon the techie term – for them to engage in the porno-police role. Then there’s the judgement call of what happens when a passenger complains that so-and-so in the seat beside them is surfing porn and what the guy is looking at is an art site with pictures of such masterpieces as Michelangelo’s David or Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, to say nothing of more modern art such as photos by Helmut Newton. Even a non-art browsing session that deals with certain medical issues – breast cancer, for one – might turn up an occasional photo that someone might take completely out of context. Lastly, there’s the issue of whether someone should be considered reasonably affected. If a person accessing such as site as I’ve mentioned is seated 4 rows ahead of the person complaining, and that person could only see them if they were walking in the aisle, what should the FA’s do about that?

In that article back in December the CEO of Aircell LLC made the comment that he thought “…decency and good sense and normal behavior…” would keep such incidents very rare and, frankly, he should be correct. The problem is that so many people today don’t seem to have a good sense at all about co-existing with other people in a tight space. “Freedom of” whatever and “my right to do” whatever seem to be the driving issue for people at every time and every place. Honestly, it’s as thought some folks act offensively simply to act offensively and, being a fairly frequent flyer, I’ve seen my share of such people. I don’t really have a lot of faith that people will act responsibly in such conditions. The technology marches on, however, and there are plenty of good things that will come from having such access, too. I just hope the airlines are up to it and that we are as well.