Apple Censorship: Coming Soon to Your Text Messages?

A new patent the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office just approved was filed in 2008 by Apple and prevents users from sending and receiving "objectionable" text messages.

The patent, officially called "Text-based communication control for personal communication device," essentially prevents what's known as "sexting." If this tech ever makes it way to your smartphone, it could theoretically alert a user, administer, or other designated individual whenever objectionable content appears in a text message. In practice, that could mean a parent gets a text when their teenage son writes something racy, or that your boss gets a notice whenever you swear in an outbound communication.

According to the patent, the iPhone could also offer suggestions with which to replace the offending text, or just delete it outright as soon as you're done typing so that it never gets sent in the first place. In effect, that means it could actually change what you're going to say.