Interesting (er, not the revolting content
), and that's exactly what I meant by my "would/should be pulled". Is the content distributed to the mobile device the exact same as the web UI? Just wondering if there's some filter in place, or if that kind of content is private/protected only, so in either app or web, that prevents violation of the [Apple] TOS?
Flickr's iOS app provides exactly the same content as the website. For better or worse.
The old version of the app didn't even filter the splash screen slideshow -- which made things interesting when I added someone with a very beautiful G-rated public photostream as a contact and they added me back as 'family,' which let a bunch of very explicit private nudes pop-up on the splash screen. (I don't know about the new version of the app -- it's so awful that I only use flickstackr to manage my flickr accounts.)
I asked this question earlier and the person didn't respond, and knowingly because they couldn't answer it and you may not either. What exactly did you pro photographers do all the years before all this smartphone madness went viral in regards to getting your needed nude materials? I'm certain those resources are still available, or are those resources now just telling you, "Get it off your iPhone". And poor you about the lack of a wifi network, professionals didn't have these luxuries back in the day and their business was successful just the same.
I
was a professional "back in the day."
What we used then was a hard-copy lookbook. Same as what most galleries want, today.
And, if you were lucky-enough to have access to an optical drum scanner, you scanned your negatives and could pull up your archives on the computer, if you were consulting with someone, in your office, who wanted to see something you didn't have in your book (because most people don't like staring, hunched over, at contact sheets).
The point is, the technology is available, now. If I want to show someone location scouting snapshots, or a pose from an otherwise lackluster photo… and we're in the car, or at a restaurant, or standing in the middle of a field, 50 miles from civilization, why shouldn't I have the ability to pull up my archives? Either from my own private server, or dropbox, Flickr, iCloud, 500px, or even (Lord-forbid), Tumblr? I suppose I also should abandon my dSLR, because I was only using film, back in the days before smartphones?
As for my "nude materials," why should the presence or absence of nudity in
my photo restrict my ability to access
my photo, based solely on the (inconsistent) judgement of the device manufacturer?
I judge my work to be of equal merit -- whether it's an abstract of a decaying bridge, a documentary photograph of a person getting arrested simply for trying to obtain a marriage license, or a figure study of a consenting nude model. Why should anyone else's judgement matter in that regard?
Please elaborate. He stated nude does not equal pornographic, and pornographic pics of 16 year olds are illegal whether nude or not. So what about the nude non-pornographic pics of 16 year olds ?
I'm not trying to debate the merits, but the Federal Courts have upheld that non-sexualized images of nude minors are not illegal and do not constitute child pornography (see Sally Mann, Jock Sturges and David Hamilton, or anyone who's taken naked baby photos).
I think this is tough for Apple. On the one hand, the App Store is already filled with enough crap; you don't want it filled with apps that are only there to appeal to perverts.
On the other hand, nudity has always been a part of the art of photography. If someone had the right to Stieglitz's nude studies and put those into an app, would Apple reject it? Because that would be insane.
Nudity on 500px is a small subset. It's basically flickr without the social networking guise and a much better photo-manipulation library that retains higher image quality when resizing uploads. And, importantly, the ability to vote-down poor quality photos, which will eventually remove them from public view, if the rating is negative enough.
Stieglitz, Weston and Cunningham were all reviled as pornographers, in their day. Their models frequently hid their faces because they would be charged with prostitution and or lewd behavior, were they to be identified.
And there is a very big difference between nudity and pornography, even if many people don't understand the difference. In the U.S., it's always been amazing to me how we're so hung up about sexuality in general, but we have no problem with extreme violence. If you have an app where you "kill" hundreds of opponents, no problem. If you have an app where you can see a nipple, everyone freaks out (welll...some people freak out). That's absurd. When are we going to grow up?
But having said all that, you can see what might happen to the App store if you search "photography" on the Amazon site. There are tons of self-published e-books that are nothing but exploitive photos of naked young women. I could see why Apple doesn't want the App Store to turn into that. I actually find it quite annoying to have to wade through them all when I'm looking for something serious.
A brief history of 'pornography': the word dates to the mid-19th century, when British archaeologists studying the ruins of Pompeii could not adequately explain the depictions of nudity found in public statuary and private homes. Thus, they concluded that such depictions were advertisements for prostitution, thus,
pornea (related to prostitution)
graphein (to write or depict) were combined. The Brits chiseled the frescoes and statues off their mounts and hid them away from the public eye, in a bout of Victorian sensibility.
The problem with obscenity, as famously stated by Potter Stewart, is that the definition is subjective and the boundary is defined by the individual. There is no broadly applicable standard.