Apple and Google’s parent company Alphabet have expressed concerns to Amazon regarding minors accessing “sexually explicit photos” via the Kindle e-book app. They have called for better moderation and for more stringent age specification for the app. According to Reuters, two families whose young sons had downloaded inappropriate material via the Kindle Unlimited app first brought the issue to light. The incidents are unlikely to have legal consequences for Amazon, but if the restrictions are not implemented, Apple and Alphabet could ban the app from their app stores.
Kindle Unlimited is an e-book flat-rate app that gives users access to hundreds of thousands of titles for a monthly fee of just under €10. Although Amazon can reject titles that contain “pornography”, it rarely does so, and partly young users are often exposed to inappropriate content.
Reuters explains that Kindle Unlimited has no way for parents to control their children’s media consumption, and parental intervention is only required in Amazon’s Terms of Use. As a consequence, Amazon has changed the age specification for the Kindle app in the App Store for iOS, increasing the age from four to 12. The Android age restriction was previously “from 13 years of age”.
After being made aware of the incidents, Amazon has announced that it plans to overhaul the app in question but did not provide any further details. The app has been available for almost ten years, and in that time, a range of self-published content has emerged, including thousands of titles in niche areas such as dinosaur erotica.
Apple and Alphabet have expressed concerns regarding the inappropriate content available on Kindle Unlimited, and as a consequence, Amazon could be banned from both app stores if restrictions are not implemented.
