Porn on Amazon's Kindle app prompts warnings from Apple, Alphabet

Apple and Alphabet issued warnings to Amazon's Kindle app for featuring porn and explicit photographs that could be accessed by children. To learn more, read this story on The Hindu.

Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. have raised concerns with Amazon.com Inc after learning that sexually explicit photographs could be accessed by children on the popular Kindle app and called on Amazon to strengthen its content moderation.

The warnings were sparked by questions posed by Reuters to spokespeople at the three companies about users’ ability, via the Kindle app, to access and view online volumes of photographs of naked women, with titles such as “75 hot fully nude photos of a young blonde” and “Real Erotica: Amateur Naked Girls – Vol. 4". Some appeared to show women and men engaging in sexual acts.

The companies said their concerns were around policy violations but did not provide more details of how their rules were broken or about their warnings to Amazon.

Reuters learned of the issue when two families told Reuters their pre-teen sons downloaded the explicit material via Amazon's Kindle Unlimited e-book subscription service and viewed the full-color photographs on the Kindle iPhone app. Pornography also is available through Amazon's Kindle online store and viewable on versions of the Kindle app.

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The parents, who declined to be named, told Reuters they were initially attracted to the $10-per-month service because it offered access to age-appropriate book series that would otherwise be expensive to purchase and were not available on Amazon's Kids+ subscription service.

“We’re committed to providing a safe shopping and reading experience for our customers and their families and we take matters like this seriously," said Amazon in a statement to Reuters. "We are reviewing all of the available information and are taking action based on our findings.”