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Over 5000 'Overtly Sexual' Apps Pulled from App Store (And Counting)

inkswamp said:
However your next paragraph confirms my suspicion that you're relying on your own definition of "censorship" (see the bold phrase above.) Censorship is not stopping the creator from producing the material. That is not the definition. Censorship is when an entity blocks distribution of specific material. Apple is, in fact, engaging in censorship by the actual definition that term.

But let's work with your definition of censorship. Since the App Store is the only legitimate distribution channel for iPhone apps, there is no way for the authors of the iPhone apps to distribute their work outside of that construct. Therefore, they are effectively unable to publish their apps. So, even by your own extended definition, Apple is engaging in censorship.
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Mirriam Webster defines sensorship: 1 a : the institution, system, or practice of censoring b : the actions or practices of censors; especially : censorial control exercised repressively
and sensoring as:: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable <censor the news>; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable <censor out indecent passages>

Given these definitions, I agree with you. My next thought is, I am not sure which is worse, a company (not the government) that decides it does not want to sell a certain product because of its business decisions, or a company being forced to sell a product it does not wish to sell out of fear of being labeled a censor. I don't want the State (referring to government, not a company) telling me what I can not say, nor do I want them telling me what I have to say. It seems to me that if Apple were forced to sell these apps, it would feel as oppressive. I understand what you are saying about the closed iPhone app distribution system, but I still feel like its Apple's ball game. These app developers could develop all kinds of other apps. No one is stopping them from that. And these developers can develop for other platforms.

People talk about the slippery slope when it comes to freedom of speech, like today wobble apps and tomorrow politics. That's a great topic, but perhaps best held in a civic's forum. I don't live in the US, but as an ex-pat, freedom of speech (again, another whole topic as to what is covered in that) truly is awesome. That it is going on here on this board is pretty cool. Thanks for engaging on the topic.

One last thought from me, wobbles or sans-wiggles, I think my iPhone is one of the best purchases I have ever made. I finally feel like technology is serving me, not me being a slave to technology. Now that is fantastic!
 
Analog Kid said:
Wow, what the App Store really needs is a tutorial in basic civics. People are having an increasingly hard time finding the line between government and business, capitalism and democracy, inalienable rights and stockroom selection...
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Agreed. Most of the complainers here have no idea what they're talking about.
 
Analog Kid said:
For a lot of these apps, the developers knew they were operating in a grey area. Anybody with a lick of sense would look at Apple, look at the App Store and wonder how far this would be allowed to go.
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Yep. In the case of the wobble app, the developer made the app more overtly sexual in subsequent updates. At first it looked like an innocent app (with which you could do non-innocent things), but he then turned it into something that was clearly non-innocent in an obvious bid for more sales. Since kids play with my iPhone all the time, I ended up deleting the app because the icon itself had become risque. The developer went the gratuitous sleaze route for $$$ and got the boot. He should just count the money he made before the door closed and be happy about it.

I have no problem with Apple deciding not to be the peddlers of this type of app. And anyone who thinks Microsoft, Palm, RIM and Google are going to allow free-for-alls on their mobile app stores are out of their minds.
 
LagunaSol said:
And anyone who thinks Microsoft, Palm, RIM and Google are going to allow free-for-alls on their mobile app stores are out of their minds.
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^^^This times 10 gazillion.

"Apple's playing moralist and it enrages me! F*** this, I'm buying an Android phone so I can download "tight teenage p***" apps to my heart's content!"

Yeah. Right. :rolleyes:
 
SteveSparks said:
There might be a question of where did the content of the application originate in addition to the rules.

Do the content provides have the necessary documentation on the models in the application that

1. They consent to being in the application
2. They are of proper age
3. The publisher of the content maintains the proper documentation on file


http://www.danheller.com/model-release-primer


We know Playboy do the above as well as SI...
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If Apple is purging apps based on the source of the content, then they need to be forthcoming and admit that's the real reason and refrain from using this "overtly sexual" criteria.
 
petsounds said:
If this is about junk apps cluttering the store, then they should remove the 50000 band fan apps that all share the same shell code. It really pisses me off because I'm always on the hunt for new synths, and I have to wade through all these useless apps first.
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Perhaps addressing this specific complaint to Apple might have some effect.

It has always surprised me why app developers are not capped in the number of apps they can have for sale at any one time. If each developer were allowed a sensible number, say 10 for a one man band, 50 for a small firm and 200 or so for a large firm, with developer licenses priced accordingly, the problem of cloning a basic skin with 100 variations would largely disappear
 
cmaier said:
Strawman argument. Apple hasn't deleted anything off of anyone's iPhones.
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How exactly is that relevant? Let me rephrase my sentence, "How would you like it if Apple decided to delete all the music, TV shows, books, and movies from the iTunes Store that was 'offensive?'"
 
Let Apple sell what they want... and me buy what I want...

The problem isn't Apple deciding what they want to sell, it's Apple deciding what I have the right to buy. More simply put, Apple has to make a choice. Either have a clean Appstore to their liking and give iPhone owners the possibility to easily and "legally" (meaning without having to jailbreak their phone) download Apps from other sources (simply put treating them like adults who paid a whole lot of money for "their" iPhone), or not be a "moral" gatekeeper on their own Appstore and allow anyone to put any application on their store (within the legal limits existing in each country) as is the case on the android store (to my knowledge at least).

The iPhone is already becoming a sort of computer replacement, the iPad will be even more so. So what I find worrisome is that a company is deciding what is morally acceptable on my phone. And like I said, I agree, they have the right to decide what they want to sell, but personally, I do not agree that they have the right to decide what's on my iPhone. And even if that statement is only true concerning Applications, I find it deeply perturbing that people find that normal. Let Apple sell what they want and let me buy (if necessary elsewhere) what I want. Sounds like a basic democratic and capitalist concept.
 
Empuk said:
The problem isn't Apple deciding what they
want to sell, it's Apple deciding what I have the right to buy. ...

And like I said, I agree, they have the right to decide what
they want to sell, but personally, I do not agree that they have
the right to decide what's on my iPhone. ... Let Apple sell what
they want and let me buy (if necessary elsewhere) what I want.
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Nice, succinct summary of the heart of the issue.

Apple are their own worst enemy at times, and the closed
Itunes eco-system will be the strongest argument against
buying an Ipad.
 
dejo said:
If Apple is purging apps based on the source of the content, then they need to be forthcoming and admit that's the real reason and refrain from using this "overtly sexual" criteria.
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I think you have a twisted sense of the word "need"
 
Americans are very uncomfortable with the sight of a nude woman. Violence is okay and murder is cool as well. A Parent would be fine with a 16 year old watching Saw and a few decapitations etc.. but god forbid they see one tit in a movie, all hells break loose.

Sex makes Americans uncomfortable as well. But getting a rifle and blowing out bambi in the woods for fun is okay or shooting animals from a helicopter for sport, beat up some gay guy thats cool. But making out with a hot chick, well that is satans work, drugging up your kid with chemical restraints and call it ADD because they are rambunctious at that age is also cool. Teachers and Parents in the US seem to try all kinds of drugs in lieu of parenting.

Americans have a lot more in common with Muslims that they want to admit.
 
sorry to say but

cmaier said:
It might shock you to hear that Americans and Muslims are not mutually-exclusive categories.
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All 3 of the realigions based on the God of the Desert seem to have this problem.

Jews/Christian/Muslim these 3 religions thought not exclusive are phallic worshiping religions.

So its not so much an American thing, but more of a religion thing. I for one am american and naked bodies gives me no problem, the more naked women the better. :D
 
SJMN: Apple ban on sexy apps not smart

Opinion piece in today's Mercury News (the hardcopy title is above).


http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_14702676?nclick_check=1

Policing iPhone apps for smut is a losing battle
By Scott Herhold

Mercury News Columnist

Updated: 03/21/2010 08:32:33 AM PDT



To: Steve Jobs

From: Yours truly

Re: Apple and sex

Dear Steve:

I know journalists are among the last people you turn to for advice. So for the sake of today's topic, pretend you've hired me as a consultant, and I'm writing you in Apple's best interests. Stranger things have happened. Pigs have flown, in a manner of speaking.

You know the back story. Apple moved recently to ban some applications for sex-tinged content from its iTunes store, saying it was getting complaints the content was degrading. A woman's dress, for instance, could be electronically wiped off with the flick of a finger across an iPhone screen.

So let's understand a few things. First, this is a matter of business, not morality. The reason Apple is cracking down on smutty apps is that it wants to be seen as a safe haven for parents who pay big bucks for their kids' iPhones.

In doing this, we collide with European mores, which are very different from our own. The Europeans simply have a more relaxed view of nudity: It's considered odd to wear a towel in a unisex sauna.

In particular, I'm talking about a site called "Naked People'' ( http://www.naked-people.de ), a German site that shows pictures of ordinary people, clothed and unclothed. In a way, it's sad. There's nothing erotic about it.

Browser access

Unless you block the access, you can get to the site through the iPhone's browser.

But when the Web publisher, Sebastian Kampa, sent in an app letting users toggle between the clothed and the unclothed, Apple rejected it. The company disallowed it even when he left people partially clothed.

Now the Germans are complaining. In their view, this is like Japanese television manufacturers telling Americans what they can watch.

What to do? I'm not suggesting that Apple should change its stance, at least not yet. To the degree that we can claim iTunes is a family place, Apple has a marketing advantage. And America, with its more puritanical mores, is still our biggest market.

But we should be clear: We're able to do this primarily because of the iPhone's phenomenal success and the dominance of iTunes. If we were Palm, we'd welcome whatever applications we could get.

Choosing among apps, moreover, creates headaches. Although we reject applications that show partially clothed Germans, Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition passes the test. In a business sense, these distinctions are defensible. They're not wholly logical.

Decency frays

Last, I fear decency strictures will eventually fray in the competitive world of smart phones. We know Google takes a more relaxed view of this stuff. If Android phones take off, Europeans with a yearning for these applications could desert Apple.

Sadly, Apple's decency standards give users an incentive to "jailbreak" their phones, which allows them to run any code on the devices, not just Apple's. We don't want that.

We could try telling parents that they ought to be more vigilant about their kids' downloads.

But even with the iPhone's controls, people are busy, and the chance of them matching the technical savvy of their kids isn't huge.

By now, you regret that you've hired me. But isn't that the role of the consultant? To gather facts, then tell you what you already know? Thanks for listening.

Scott
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MacDawg said:
Scott is a little late to the game and brings nothing new to the table
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... but he's doing it on the front page of one of the sections
of Cupertino's home town newspaper.

It may be late for MR, but it's probably news to a lot of people
reading the Sunday paper.
 
Just thinking out loud...

The way I see it, devices are the endpoint of both the internet and app stores.

All of us are (or should be) for net neutrality. Nothing worse than an entitity like a cable company preventing you from, or making you pay more for, access to any particular website.

Likewise, people have complained for years against carrier control of what apps we could put on our dumbphones. (Only dumbphones. Most smartphones didn't have app restrictions until Apple came along.)

The FCC has already pointed out that they consider application control to be counter to the idea of net neutrality. Two interesting rules are:

2. Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service may not prevent any of its users from running the lawful applications or using the lawful services of the user’s choice.
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Now, if ATT cannot stop you from using an app, how then can Apple do the same, being the single store gateway?

4. Subject to reasonable network management, a provider of broadband Internet access service may not deprive any of its users of the user’s entitlement to competition among network providers, application providers, service providers, and content providers.
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Again, ATT cannot stop you from going to multiple app stores, so why can Apple?

It would be a small step for the FCC to start considering app stores as part of the entire neutrality delivery infrastructure.
 
at the moment the FCC has no jurisdiction to police how anyone runs an app store.

kdarling said:
Just thinking out loud...

The way I see it, devices are the endpoint of both the internet and app stores.

All of us are (or should be) for net neutrality. Nothing worse than an entitity like a cable company preventing you from, or making you pay more for, access to any particular website.

Likewise, people have complained for years against carrier control of what apps we could put on our dumbphones. (Only dumbphones. Most smartphones didn't have app restrictions until Apple came along.)

The FCC has already pointed out that they consider application control to be counter to the idea of net neutrality. Two interesting rules are:



Now, if ATT cannot stop you from using an app, how then can Apple do the same, being the single store gateway?



Again, ATT cannot stop you from going to multiple app stores, so why can Apple?

It would be a small step for the FCC to start considering app stores as part of the entire neutrality delivery infrastructure.
Click to expand...
 
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