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Apple Removes Civil War Games From App Store Over Confederate Flag Usage [Updated]
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Ironically this is also a form of censorship, making a debate irrelevant by removing apps of which you think has no value in a given debate. And there is no room for debating that. I think that's wrong.
Even if such a term applied to a private company's actions, which it does not, explain how Apple selling these apps would contribute to public debate.
You want them to show the image more, in whatever context...why? What goal does that accomplish, especially when Apple feels that the image presented in certain ways is offensive, and feels that its consumers feel the same way. Why does Apple HAVE to provide your side with more hateful eye candy if it finds that upsetting?
"Mean-spirited" is a very broad term that could apply to most role play or war games on the App Store. They need a clearer definition of what is acceptable and what is not.
So they need to keep the symbol up so people can see it and thereby cause more debate on whether the symbol and the ideals behind it are good? Pretty circular, no?
Wrong. Again.
First I understand that freedom of speech as Constitutionally protected applies to the government controlling speech, not to a business controlling speech.
This is that case of a business curtailing freedom of speech. I did NOT imply that the business did not have a right to do it. I am clearly stating that this is wrong based on ethical grounds. Freedom of speech is based on ethics. There is no rational argument for curtailment of this freedom. And especially, not in the context.
So no, you have been wrong twice now.
Are we done here?
This already happens. Watch a couple hours each of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC. They're all showing "news" that's different from one another and what they believe is important for you to know. Politicians, for example, tend to only take on interviews on networks that are sympathetic to them, only throwing them softball questions, and accepting the answers they're given with no follow ups. They want to control what you know. And this isn't some sort of crazy conspiracy theory, it's just the way things work unfortunately.
Because eliminating a symbol of racism from public consciousness makes the actual problem of racism go away?
That's only true if the flag causes racism, which is the single most absurd position I have ever heard in an argument... well, maybe not, there are still creationists after all. However it is an absurd position.
Making a stand against a symbol of an ideology is absurd. Heterosexuality was the symbol of marriage ideology. Tim Cook was on the right side of that battle and we now have marriage equality in the U.S. He took a stand on the wrong side of this one in attacking the symbol, not the ideology.
It goes exactly to your point. You have a right to not be prevented from expressing an opinion by THE GOVERNMENT. You DO NOT have a right to feel good about your opinion and get it displayed by everyone everywhere because you have that opinion. You DO NOT have the right to NOT be mocked, criticized, called a bigot for your opinion. You DO NOT have a right for your opinion or symbols of that opinion to be displayed by others.
THAT is the ethics of freedom of speech.
But, just tell me I'm wrong and go back to Fox News and your Conservative blogs. It's safer there.
It's by any means a way better option then banning due of censorship because you "think," that is from Apple's viewpoint, that your answer is the only right answer to this.
Let people enjoy gaming and when there is scientific proof that playing specific games leads to violence then one can always remove a game.
Anyway we probably agree on one thing we agree to disagree. I made my point pretty clear and I leave it to it. Have a nice day sir, heading downtown Amsterdam the Netherlands with my girlfriend for dinner.
How exactly do you stop people from having an opinion?
The law currently prohibits the use of language or actions that incite racial hatred or violence, which is quite right. AFAIK that doesn't currently include the use flags. Maybe it should, in which case the US government should change the law.
Apple seems quite happy to preach to us what is right and wrong, what is acceptable and what's not. IMO people should be free to express their thoughts and opinions within the law. That's called freedom of speech and without it we would end up like the poor people of China.
Only works for those who want to be educated.
It wont end. It'll only get worse.
Now they came for our flag. Next, I hear the feminists are going to steal our penises.
Agreed.
We gotta remove the Confederate flag from the app store, but the thousands of songs that use profanity, the n-word, glorify violence, denigrate women, etc. those are ok and can stay.
The patriotic American apps are pretty offensive to persons of Native lineage, Vietnamese or Laotians, Gulf War vets who were guinea pigs for bioweapon testing, Iraqi civilians, relatives of church families from Nagasaki..... I could go on forever....................all that is fine and dandy though....nothing to see here, as always.
Considering Roof's motivation for the killings, it's really pretty wonderful that his actions are getting the Southern Cross removed from a lot of places. Stew on that d-bag.
Irony at its finest.
Irony at its finest.
Sad but true. I think Agent Orange ranks right up there with the holocaust and the nuclear bombs dropped in Japan in evilness. To poison the people of developing country for decades including their unborn children and grandchildren is way more ****ed up than slavery. Slavery (as awful and completely unacceptable as it is) at least was done for rational economical reasons.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-herbicide-sprayed-US-Army-40-years-ago.html
But I guess all that is besides the point since the acts of the Confederacy is not the reason the flag is seen as offensive.
The problem I think is that the flag is both racist/offensive and historical. That's why really nobody in here is debating whether it should be removed from government buildings. For the most part everyone in this discussion is in agreement that it doesn't really have any place being flown there. Some people in here, including myself, think that the flag being used in the context of the civil war is perfectly fine. Apparently some others in here, as well as Apple, don't think so.
I'll be honest and say that I haven't played any of the games that were banned. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my best guess is that the flag was used to simply denote the South or the Confederacy as a "side." If that is your, or Apples, definition of "offensive mean spirited usage" then I don't know what else to say to you besides that I believe that to be extremely sensitive.
Ironically the real straw man is what you say in the last paragraph. I haven't, at any point, argued that Apple wants to ban the depiction of all offensive things. What I did do was ask the thread at large why they wouldn't ban other offensive media. I assumed the answer would be that they would not ban other media and I was correct in that assumption. The next question I posed was why not? The point of this question was to try and understand the difference between that other media and the banning of these particular games. It seems you're saying to me that the difference is that in the other media "they are portraying things that are offensive in an appropriate way." This implies that in the games they are portraying things that are offensive in an inappropriate way. To this I would simply ask why you think that curb stomping a black man is an offensive thing portrayed in an appropriate way but generally denoting the south with a flag is an offensive thing portrayed inappropriately?
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