500px's Photo Sharing App Pulled From App Store Over Nude Photos

I know it's fun for some people here to say "dood Apple stop being Mormon", but it's likely (and has been reported by others) that Apple received complaints about this. The very fact that Apple allows other apps that can show users nudity (like YouTube, Flickr, etc) actually shows that it's not about Apple trying to be a parent. There is something about this app that made it somehow worse than the others, either a customer complaint or just one dumb app reviewer working for Apple.

But I am aware of the fact that app reviewers can be unreasonable or at least strict, and I know some things about the fairly strict iOS app rules. In case anyone is wondering, contrary to popular belief, 3rd-party apps CAN run indefinitely in the background if they conform to certain guidelines.

I'm trying to understand the people in this thread. So Apple allows all these other apps showing nudity and violence and blood and guts and then just haphazardly decided to block this one? Randomly? Out of the blue? Just cause?

People here don't realize that there has to be some reason they did this? And it wasn't just them trying to shut down nudity on the internet?

Would any of these people badmouthing Apple like to offer their reason why Apple hasn't blocked all the other apps?

HEADS need to roll at Apple.



...hurrrr ....hurrr... get it?

LMAO at the people here who are annoyed that the app was pulled. They must use it day in, day out, at lunch, at dinner, before work and during church.

iGrip said:

Apple said "We’ve asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app."

And yet Apple sells an app on each and every iOS product that fails to prevent pornographic images: Safari.

These guys are friggin morons. Maybe all those years of keeping their mouth shut about their policies was to prevent their foot from entering.

Thanks for the lulz, guys. My guess is that Apple is going to just keep digging itself deeper into a hole.

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I didn't know Apple sold Safari in the AppStore.

Anyway they clearly aren't banning plenty of other apps that allow you to view nudity so maybe there is something specific about this app that forced them to remove it. And for all we know in a day or two this App will be back on the AppStore and this will all have been much ado about nothing.

This is curious in that Google's search results also show nudity, and are set to a safe mode by default. At what point is the "app" in the browser governed by the same rules as OS native applications, at least as "presented" by Apple?

Is Apple's intention to get Google to clean up it's act?

HenryDJP said:

LMAO at the people here who are annoyed that the app was pulled. They must use it day in, day out, at lunch, at dinner, before work and during church.

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I'm sure it was used a lot at those occasions too, as it is a multipurpose app that does not focus on [americans, look away!]NUDE PHOTOS[/americans, look away!].

(especially as we're also talking about "nudes" and not "porn", although I know that it's treated the same by many)

Ah, le walled garten.

iGrip said:

Apple said "We’ve asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app."

And yet Apple sells an app on each and every iOS product that fails to prevent pornographic images: Safari.

These guys are friggin morons. Maybe all those years of keeping their mouth shut about their policies was to prevent their foot from entering.

Thanks for the lulz, guys. My guess is that Apple is going to just keep digging itself deeper into a hole.

Click to expand...

I didn't know Safari was for sale at the App Store. How much does it cost? Does it offer In-App purchases?

HenryDJP said:

LMAO at the people here who are annoyed that the app was pulled. They must use it day in, day out, at lunch, at dinner, before work and during church.

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What if you are a professional photographer who owns an iPhone and happens to take/view/participate in classy nude photography?

Apple doesn't need to be the cops here. Jeez.

iGrip said:

Apple said "We’ve asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app."

And yet Apple sells an app on each and every iOS product that fails to prevent pornographic images: Safari.

These guys are friggin morons. Maybe all those years of keeping their mouth shut about their policies was to prevent their foot from entering.

Thanks for the lulz, guys. My guess is that Apple is going to just keep digging itself deeper into a hole.

Click to expand...

How come the "friggin morons" haven't blocked other apps with nudity?

Or are those next on their list in their quest to rid the world of nudity?

Apple needs to get over their obsession with nudity. It's not that I want to see a bunch of porn apps in the app store....I absolutely do not want to have to wade through all that. But people shouldn't go completely excessive in the other direction either. The country Apple is based in, is after all, still a free county with free speech rights. So this censorship is ridiculous and to single out certain apps but not others is even worse.

I understand the need to protect children, but can the adults be allowed to be adults please? There has to be a happy medium somewhere in there.

Blaming Apple as prudish might make you feel good about yourself, but it helps if you know what you are talking about. There were nude self portraits of 16 year old girls on 500px that never got deleted. I bet this is illegal not only in the U.S. and by the way, 500px is a company in Canada.

coolbreeze said:

What if you are a professional photographer who owns an iPhone and happens to take/view/participate in classy nude photography?

Apple doesn't need to be the cops here. Jeez.

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Don't even try it. Any professional photographer that needs nude photos for his/her career isn't rely sorely on their personal communication device to provide such material.

The annoyed responses from the people on here wreak of the horny teen that relied on his/her phone to enjoy naked photos so they can hide it from their parents.

MacBird said:

Blaming Apple as prudish might make you feel good about yourself, but it helps if you know what you are talking about. There were nude self portraits of 16 year old girls on 500px that never got deleted. I bet this is illegal not only in the U.S. and by the way, 500px is a company in Canada.

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You mean there was a logical explanation? Wow, I thought apple was trying to police the internet!

This thread is a prime example of the anti Apple rhetoric that exists everywhere for no reason at all.

Of course Apple must be trying to censor the world! What else would it be??

HenryDJP said:

Don't even try it. Any professional photographer that needs nude photos for his/her career isn't rely sorely on their personal communication device to provide such material.

The annoyed responses from the people on here wreak of the horny teen that relied on his/her phone to enjoy naked photos so they can hide it from their parents.

Click to expand...

I just tried it and my point is valid. But I see your point too.

I mean, if someone carries only their iPhone and camera into the field for photography, I guess they should't be allowed to look at other portfolios using the app (or whatever).

Makes perfect sense.

Zealous said:

...All I can say is it's about time...

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Really...I have never heard of this app, but what do you have against it? Just wondering.

MadeTheSwitch said:

Apple needs to get over their obsession with nudity..

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I hope you meant "Apple's obsession with CENSORING nudity". Their customers are the ones who obsess over nudity and that's probably why most people are upset here. Their fun has been taken away. People sure give themselves away here when news like this comes up.

According to GigaOm Apple pulled the app because of complaints sent to them of possible child porn on the site. There may be more to the story after all.

MacBird said:

Blaming Apple as prudish might make you feel good about yourself, but it helps if you know what you are talking about. There were nude self portraits of 16 year old girls on 500px that never got deleted. I bet this is illegal not only in the U.S. and by the way, 500px is a company in Canada.

Click to expand...

Were they confirmed 16 year olds? Cause there are a lot of 18 year olds, and even a little bit older, that look 16. I myself was mistaken for a 16 year old for most of my early twenties (in real life I mean).

Of course to muddle the waters further there are also those who appear older than their actually are.

coolbreeze said:

I mean, if someone carries only their iPhone and camera into the field for photography, I guess they should't be allowed to look at other portfolios using the app (or whatever).

Makes perfect sense.

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Okay, I'm hearing ya. But answer this, before all this smartphone madness went so viral where do think those professional photographers accessed their nude material?

APlotdevice said:

Were they confirmed 16 year olds? Cause there are a lot of 18 year olds, and even a little bit older, that look 16. I myself was mistaken for a 16 year old for most of my early twenties (in general I mean).

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This particular girl stated in her bio blurb that she is 16 and she had plenty of nude self portraits on her page. You can also find several images of masturbating women pretty much every day and 500px does not delete them unless someone complains. They have policies against pornography but they don't enforce them proactively. This seems to backfire now.

Apple doesn't care about this; the government does.

Don't the app store minders know anything. If nudie pictures appear in an app, it's not the app that is supposed to be pulled.

btw they weren't pictures of Lilly by any chance?

Apple should pull Snapchat too. I can't see any other reason to use it other than to send nudes to people and only allow them to see it for 10 seconds. Other than that, the app is pointless.