About the McDonald’s ban

I haven’t chimed in on the controversy that began when it was revealed McDonald’s NZ was blocking non-adult gay sites from its recently-launched free WiFi service. But the controversy just isn’t going away, despite the company agreeing to “review” its policies.

McDonald’s NZ filtering isn’t homophobic, but it is IS stupid.

The service blocks even benign pages, like Wikipedia pages for certain body parts. It also blocks NZ dating sites which, of course, serve everyone. To be homophobic, it would have to single out GLBT sites or content, and it doesn’t.

But it’s incredibly stupid in 2011 to still be using broad-brush, completely unsophisticated web filters when much better, more precise filtering technology exists. Maybe it was a cost-related decision, or maybe it was made by an executive without any understanding of the implications of using bad, unsophisticated web filtering. But without any evidence to the contrary, their filtering is stupid, not evil.

McDonald’s statements have been unfortunate.

In defending their third-rate web filters, McDonald’s reiterated that it’s a family restaurant, and web pages must be suitable for children to view (they meant casually, like from another table or when walking by). No one would argue that it’s appropriate to look at pornography in a McDonald’s; in fact, I’d even say it’s creepy to do that. But porn wasn’t the issue here.

It came across as McDonald’s agreeing with our fundamentalist “Christian” friends that all (or nearly all) GLBT sites are by definition “adult-rated”. I think—or hope, anyway—that that’s NOT what McDonald’s meant.

I think part of the problem is that corporations like McDonald’s are far too cautious in deciding what’s truly “adult-rated”. I also think that perhaps they fall back on barely-acknowledged, even unconscious assumptions. It’s probabluy more sexist than homophobic that they’d have a problem with ads promoting travel to a resort on a gay site displaying ads with pictures of scantily clad nubile young men, but have no problem with “general audience” sites that display ads with photos of scantily-clad nubile young women. And if ads are their problem, why not block them?

The main problem with McDonald’s statements is the implication that GLBT people aren’t included in “family”, don’t have families and don’t have children. They implied GLBT people are on one side, families on the other (it’s important to note that not all corporate statements implied this). I don’t think—or I hope—that McDonald’s spokespeople didn’t mean to imply that, but it was nevertheless implicit in their suggesting that GLBT websites may not be appropriate for their “family friendly restaurants”.

This is one of the ways in which McDonald’s was being the most stupid: The company cannot survive if their only customers are parents/caregivers bringing along young children. They need single adults, teenagers and older folks. It makes no sense to imply that some of these customers aren’t valued or as important to the company, and it’s especially stupid to imply that the company accepts money from GLBT people, but doesn’t consider them to be real customers.

So, is McDonald’s NZ homophobic? No. Stupid? Absolutely, and they made it worse by their ham-fisted public relations efforts.

Update: GayNZ.com reports that McDonald's NZ has unlblocked Rainbow Youth and Agender, but is "struggling" with what to do about GayNZ.com itself "due to some of the site's advertisements, but has offered to meet with GayNZ.com to discuss possible ways forward, an offer GayNZ.com is taking up." In an article on Stuff, company spokesperson Christine Dennis said, "Some advertisements are sexually explicit and they do not meet our 'family or child friendly' criteria.'' Considering there’s no nudity in the ads, and no sex acts depicted, “sexually explicit” is a bit too strong; there are heterosexual equivalents of some of the ads on mainstream news sites, for example, sites McDonald’s does not block.

Meanwhile, back on GayNZ.com, Vaughan Meneses writes about what could and couldn't be accessed on the WiFi network, and concludes: "Obviously in a family friendly environment like McDonald's it is not OK to access counselling and support information that could save the lives of our kids. But it is OK for them to watch a rape, feed racism, and become a white supremacist." He provides examples of all of those, and shows just how silly McDonald’s filters really are.