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Before people work themselves into self-righteous fury (too late) about how authoritarian Apple is censoring homosexuality and promoting a culture of homophobia
by dieterrams 16y ago
Before people work themselves into self-righteous fury (too late) about how authoritarian Apple is censoring homosexuality and promoting a culture of homophobia, you need to understand that this is about no-nudity, a policy the article's writer knows full well about already, seeing as how he wrote a previous article about it and linked to it.
As davidedicillo pointed out, he attempts to work this into an anti-gay angle by pointing out how a comic book not directly reviewed by Apple (it is downloadable through a comic store app) containing more explicit heterosex was not similarly censored, which is about as airtight an analysis as you might expect from Fox News. He literally has nothing else to base his anti-homosexual conclusions on.
I do think Apple is fundamentally misguided in its attempts to regulate content, and they're only going to dig themselves into a deeper hole by doing anything beyond adopting ratings and age blockers. But unfortunately this article is a yet another example of anti-Apple hysteria fueled sensationalism.
- aphyr 16y agoGiven that there is no frontal nudity in any of the panels shown, and many of the censored scenes have no nudity whatsoever, could you further explain your case that this censorship is "about no-nudity"? You can see more explicit nudity than this in most daily papers, or heck, walking down the street during a pride parade.
- axod 16y agoIt's not just about nudity, it's about social acceptability. Apple seem to be on some content policing crusade which is ill judged IMHO, but it's fairly obvious why this is censored.
- dieterrams 16y agoI'm not defending this policy or suggesting that it makes any sense given how easy it is to find nudity (or sexual acts, etc.) elsewhere. It doesn't. But the writer has simply failed to present any compelling evidence that this censorship was about homosexuality. Given that there's an established policy against nudity and not homosexuality, it makes more sense to consider the former as the determinative criteria, doesn't it? Apps get rejected merely for showing women in bathing suits. There is one panel in the comic which does not contain any explicit or implied nudity that's censored, but which is still obviously sexual. I've no idea if blacking this panel out was Apple's idea and is consistent with other policies, or if the creators just decided to play it safe. And Apple's content regulation policies have never been consistently enforced, subject to individual reviewers' interpretations of what's kosher. (A particularly good reason why they should drop this process.) Apple deserves much legitimate criticism over content regulation, but this article isn't an example of that.
- MartinCron 16y agoHere's your example: http://gizmodo.com/5562802/the-latest-examples-of-apples-stupid-editorial-censorship http://gizmodo.com/5562802/the-latest-examples-of-apples-stu... Scroll down to see the example from the Apple-Approved Kick-ass comic, which did feature nudity as well as (hetero) sexual acts.
- dieterrams 16y agoNope. If you'd read the second page of the OP, you'd realize this was exactly the comic that Apple did not directly review.
- MartinCron 16y agoYou're right. Sorry. I stand corrected.
- aphyr 16y agoAh yes, implied nudity. You know, like clothes. ;) Here's the iPhone dev agreement: http://www.eff.org/files/20100302_iphone_dev_agr.pdf http://www.eff.org/files/20100302_iphone_dev_agr.pdf The only pertinent section I can find is: "Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple's reasonable judgment may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users." Which, in matter of fact, does not prohibit nudity, but rather anything Apple thinks its users might be offended by. Nudity is in fact allowed. We can surmise this from the approval of "Fabulous nude paintings puzzle", and dozens more like it. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fabulous-nude-paintings-puzzle/id354279965?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fabulous-nude-paintings-puzzl... Stranger still, "iGirl uncut", where you can "Blow her, shake her, touch her and more", must not be obscene, objectionable, or pornographic. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/igirl-uncut/id300462216?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/igirl-uncut/id300462216?mt=8 I agree with you: the panels are sexual. But Apple's policy clearly allows them to ban whatever the hell they feel like. When the enforcement of that policy is wildly inconsistent, it looks a hell of a lot like unjust content regulation to me. As for the article's claim of homophobia, I don't have the grounds to claim the reviewers who censored this app were motivated by anti-gay sentiment, but I also wouldn't be surprised.
- Loy 16y agoAccording to your comments history, 100% of your posts have been about defending Apple against criticisms. I almost never check the history of users, but in your case the tone of your message was so identifiable that I did it instantly.