Sorry, You Can’t Watch Porn at Starbucks

Starbucks will block porn on its free Wi-Fi

Starbucks, the Seattle-based coffee giant with thousands of cafes where laptop-wielding hordes camp out for hours at a time, is kind enough to offer free public Wi-Fi. However, it is no longer kind enough to allow patrons to watch pornography over that free Wi-Fi. Sorry, horn dogs.

Next year, according to the Verge, the company plans to introduce a filter that will block porn sites, finally responding to years of criticism from people who do not want to share their remote offices with watching-porn-in-public weirdos. “While it rarely occurs, the use of Starbucks public Wi-Fi to view illegal or egregious content is not, nor has it ever been permitted,” reads an official statement. “We have identified a solution to prevent this content from being viewed within our stores and we will begin introducing it to our US locations in 2019.”

Of course, this filter won’t do anything about accessing porn sites via personal cellular data.

And in other food news ...

• Loyal Dunkin’ customers, check your bank accounts. The doughnut-and-coffee chain’s loyalty program was hacked. [Boston Globe]
• With Donald Trump’s trade war taking its toll on American farmers, soybean growers are holding their crops and hoping the dispute will blow over. Here’s a deep dive into how one farm is dealing with its new reality. [New York Times]
• A new cafe in Tokyo is staffed entirely by robots that are controlled by people who are paralyzed. The operators make about $8.80 per hour, the standard wage for part-time work in Japan. [Sora News 24]
• Sixty-year-old rapper-turned-dramatic television star Ice-T went on the Tonight Show to explain how he had never eaten a bagel until filming a recent Law & Order: SVU episode: “I’m from South Central. Can you image in Snoop singing, ‘Rolling down the street smoking Indo eating some lox and bagels?’” [YouTube]

• Prospective diners looking for a place to eat don’t trust five-star restaurant reviews on public platforms such as Yelp and Google. Instead, three- and four-star reviews have more value. [Fast Company]
• Finally, a new study suggests it is a bad idea to eat french fries due to a higher risk of mortality associated with consuming fried potatoes. Honestly, these researchers can lay off. French fries taste good, and since everything is unhealthy, we should just enjoy ourselves. [New York Times]