News

Porn officially taken off the menu at Starbucks

November 29, 2018

Starbucks customers will have to order their lattes sans porn as the coffee giant is rolling out a tool next year to block them from viewing explicit content in stores, according to an email to FastCasual from a Starbucks spokesperson.

"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," she said. "To ensure the Third Place remains safe and welcoming to all, we have identified a solution to prevent this content from being viewed within our stores and we will begin introducing it to our U.S. locations in 2019."

The spokesperson, however, did not specify which tools the chain would implement. 

Starbucks had announced in 2016, that it was committed to blocking pornography, which trigged internet safety group Enough Is Enough to applaud the decision. After seeing no further action, however, EIE created a petition earlier this month calling out Starbucks for not following through on its promise. As of Nov. 20, it had collected nearly 27,000 signatures. 

"Apparently, Starbucks cares more about providing paper straws to protect the environment than protecting kids and patrons on its public WiFi!," the organization stated in a blog post. "Starbucks broke its promise to filter pornography and child sex abuse images, despite its public announcement it would voluntarily provide safe WiFi in its restaurants nationwide…an announcement more than 2 and-a-half years ago! "

Several major restaurant brands, including McDonald's, filter porn from their stores.