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> We will reject apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know i

> We will reject apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it. This line makes my blood boil. Futhermore, later they define disallowed sexual content as: > 1.1.4 Overtly sexual or pornographic material, defined by Webster’s Dictionary as "explicit descriptions or displays of sexual organs or activities intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings." Do they not know from which ruling that quote comes from?

ciarannolan 6y ago
I can't believe they were dumb enough to put that SCOTUS line in this. It just plays into their current "meh, here's some rules but we'll do whatever we want anyway" image.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  It's their treehouse; they can do what they want. None of these platforms are your friend. Half the Apple devs I know have some kind of stockholm syndrome, though.
  - xnyan 6y ago
    Apple owns the platform. I'm still going to try and change how they do business because that would be better for me. Everyone is allowed to do that and there's nothing wrong with it. If you want to give up your power as a person to try to affect change, that's cool but I'm not giving up any non-immoral tool I have.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Or just maybe they like making money on the mobile platform where people will actually spend money?
    - dmonitor 6y ago
      The crazy part is the people who fly into fits of rage when you suggest Apple could do something differently. Changing the web browser on iOS was one that would get tons of hate and responses like “you don’t need that! it would confuse people!” Then Apple lets people do it and now they’re okay with it
      - SahAssar 6y ago
        You still can't change the browser on iOS. All the other "browsers" are heavily restricted skins over a webview, not a proper other browser.
        design-material 6y ago
        And that's OK; if it wasn't for Apple then Google would essentially own the current and future direction of the web by now
        likeclockwork 6y ago
        with their sandbagged browser that they only bother to update once a year? Firefox is the competition for Chrome, Safari is just a sandbag to hold open the gap between web apps and native apps.
        scarface74 6y ago
        Apple updates the browser between major OS updates. Apple added YubiKey support (https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/12/12/apple-ios-13-3-is-here-bringing-support-for-keyfobby-authentication/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/12/12/apple-ios-13-3-i...) for 2FA in Safari in 13.3 and they added better mouse support to Safari as well as other built in apps between major releases. Firefox is losing market share and almost completely dependent on Google for its survival. If Firefox tries not to support something that the rest of the industry is supporting (like the web based DRM) the rest of the industry just yawns.
        6y ago
- _jal 6y ago
  I'm really surprised. Did Apple shake up their PR or legal flacks? The language they've used recently (I'm thinking of the Epic stuff, too) feels different than their famously cool, considered tone; looser, more assertive, and much easier to argue with.
  - pier25 6y ago
    I agree. Sentences like "we think that you will also know it when you cross it" are extremely arrogant.
  - smnrchrds 6y ago
    I disagree. They have always been this arrogant. You are just noticing it right now. Do you remember when they essentially said don't run to the press if we don't allow your app, it won't help you, which I personally interpreted as or else? Or how almost every time someone criticizes Apple they sandwich a one-sentence criticism between 50 sentences of praise because they know the cost of not doing that could be their entire business? Since the launch of iPhone, Apple has been the 800lb gorilla in the room and has acted like it. EDIT: From App Store Review Guidelines on September 2014: > "If your App is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps." https://web.archive.org/web/20140903022336/https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140903022336/https://developer...
    - jjeaff 6y ago
      Which is such a lie, because going to the press is exactly what gets a lot of apps re-evaluated and accepted.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - dclowd9901 6y ago
        Eh, it _can_ be a lie. This is some form of the quandary “if you owe the bank a million dollars, you’re in trouble; if you owe the bank a billion dollars, the bank is in trouble.” 99% of app devs will not benefit from “running to the press.” Those that will will know it for certain.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Everything is a judgment call. You can no more spell out everything that is considered explicit than your HR department can spell out everything that might constitute harassment.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that line's been in there since the review guidelines were public, years ago.
  - input_sh 6y ago
    I found an article from 6 years ago that quotes that line, so at least since then: https://www.theregister.com/Print/2014/09/04/apple_new_app_store_guidelines_for_developers/ https://www.theregister.com/Print/2014/09/04/apple_new_app_s...
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  If I remember correctly, the SCOTUS reference dates back to when Steve Jobs was CEO. I am, um, not at all surprised he put that in the guidelines. The guidelines also used to say: > If your App looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or you're trying to get your first practice App into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who don't want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour. You can tell this was personally written by Steve. --- Taken from https://web.archive.org/web/20140903022336/https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140903022336/https://developer.... This is the earliest available in the Internet Archive as far as I can tell; circa-2012 they were kept behind an account login.
  - chipotle_coyote 6y ago
    I've heard anecdotally that Steve Jobs helped write those guidelines, and the "amateur hour" line in particular sure sounds like him. I don't mean that in a disparaging way; Jobs could certainly be a jerk, but there are times I wish more CEOs were willing to be that blunt in official communication.
    - ksec 6y ago
      And to be honest it make sense in the early days. Jobs wanted the absolute best Apps in the Apps Store. Situation now is different though. Jobs would likely have some human touch in the current situation. Where as Tim Cook feels less so.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    Given how much amateur hour there is on the app store, I think they might as well remove that rule...
  - crehn 6y ago
    That sounds like a good guideline to be honest. Perhaps not the best-worded one, but gets the point across and avoids becoming another Google Play Store.
- codeulike 6y ago
  Its been there for years https://web.archive.org/web/20160706210122/https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160706210122/https://developer...
Shivetya 6y ago
well at least he upheld the First Amendment when uttering that statement but the rest of his text basically shows he knew that First Amendment rights were more important than his moral code and asked if he could define what would cross the line he could not do so satisfactory. Now as to Apple, I don't have to buy their products and if I do I know what to expect. If it really mattered or should I say bothered me enough I certainly would buy a different product. Right now my Apple purchases are on hold for their virtue signaling and effective turning their backs on abuses in China and Hong Kong. Apple Human Rights Warranty, Void where prohibited by law.
- Bud 6y ago
  Abuses in China? So what are you planning to purchase instead? Because Apple is doing better with worker rights in China than any competitor is.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > So what are you planning to purchase instead? E.g.: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ But the issue wasn't about manufacturing to begin with. The trouble is that Apple have significant operations in China, which makes them subject to influence by China, while at the same time maintaining control over what their users see and what they see about their users. A less vertically integrated company wouldn't have that problem.
  - antihero 6y ago
    As an Apple user I'd like to believe this but it would be good to get some citation on that.
- scarface74 6y ago
  So are you not going to buy any electronic items?
npunt 6y ago
Not sure if what you're arguing against is judgment calls, or against the fallout of that supreme court ruling, but to address the use of judgment, the nature of curation is that it's not always something that can be put in a set of explicit rules. There's always people that walk right up to and over the line and generally push boundaries and find loopholes, no matter how well written rules are. Human judgment needs to be a part of the process if a good experience is desired. Now it can be argued that Apple doesn't execute on this approach particularly well, but the idea that they want to be able to make some judgment calls is perfectly valid and if done right leads to the best experience.
- theferalrobot 6y ago
  > Human judgment needs to be a part of the process if a good experience is desired Yeah just to second this I think that a lot of us coming from software backgrounds like to think of laws as being code, fully definable, automatable and capable of covering all edge cases. This isn’t the case. Judgement is required. Not to ruin my own metaphor but I actually think there is a lesson about software as well. Software is not something capable of perfection. There is no perfect code, everything is a bodge, some bodges are more useful than others. You can’t cover every edge case. Software evolves and has flaws much like the product of natural evolution.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    One observation I've made about laws vs code is that the former allows for the use of some very... convenient descriptors. The best one is "reasonable". It's used all the time in legal agreements, and it's exactly the type of mushy concept you could never explain to a computer. And I think that's healthy. Laws are written for people, not computers, and as far as I can (I'm very much not a lawyer), everyone basically agrees on what "reasonable" means. Furthermore, I'm not sure what we'd do without that word, because you can't realistically outline every possible scenario in advance.
  - npunt 6y ago
    Agree. Decision environments are high dimensional spaces that human judgment can tap into. Laws and rules are ways to compress that space, but the compression is lossy and can lead to a divergence between the letter of the rule and its intent. And to add more complexity to the situation, laws and rules are but static snapshots within a dynamic system, and may simply drift away from intent with the progression of time and people's viewpoints. Kind of like a really old keyframe in a compressed video that starts smearing from the accumulation of too many changes.
shaftway 6y ago
I completely agree. When rules aren't codified it invites biased interpretation of them. However.... I've worked on an internal communications platform. For some reason people would forget that they were on a corporate site with their corporate email linked to it and spew garbage that any decent person would be embarrassed to say out loud. So we deliberately didn't codify our rules. We chose not to because we were aware that if we did then people would deliberately cozy up as close to the line as they could, and that wasn't the kind of environment we wanted to foster. We avoided bias by removing information about the flagger or flagee when content was flagged and judged it based on the content ourselves. After we judged we'd look up who was responsible for the content, and if we felt they were doing some penetration testing to see exactly where those lines were we would start to loop in their manager, HR, legal, and anyone else we felt should be aware. Our escalation procedure went up to banning, though nobody ever reached that point. And our content improved. If the story ended there I would still be against not having codified rules, but begrudgingly accept that it worked in that situation. Unfortunately the story doesn't end there. Staff was hired so that engineers wouldn't be responsible for this. The staff was less familiar with the ecosystem and they proceeded to clamp down more and more on acceptable content. They cozied up to HR and legal who were never really comfortable with the permissiveness of the platform, and received praise and additional funding to grow the team for these clampdowns. I left the project and haven't looked back. You're right, "I'll know it when I see it" is a garbage sentiment that at best is a cop out, but too often is used to withhold rules and keep people in the dark as a power play, or even squash dissenters with arbitrary and unbalanced application of force.
- baybal2 6y ago
  To begin with, I think they made it to accommodate Tencent, who once threatened to pull Wechat from App Store if they don't let them use their own payments. First, they used them for transfers only, but later came games, and etc.
  - Hokusai 6y ago
    Because it is not about fairness or rules. It is about extracting as much values as possible from app developers. That made sense when the Apple store was a small kind of start up enterprise. Nowadays, it should be regulated so all developers can use the platform in a level field where competition is real and it is not just a game for big corporations.
LudwigNagasena 6y ago
> a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it. I personally think this is the worst line that ever came out of a Supreme Court decision because of how simple it is. It is such a blatant low effort cop out that legitimizes arbitrary rulings. At least usually they obfuscate it with legal jargon and historical rulings.
- dawg- 6y ago
  The quote is infamous for being a terribly useless statement. Not sure why they would want to use something like that to defend themselves
- unishark 6y ago
  I think of it as the legal version of the observation from psychology that some tasks (e.g. recognition of images) are performed by the brain without conscious understanding of the process.
modeless 6y ago
Interesting that the film at issue in the Supreme Court case, in which 6/9 justices disagreed about the reasons why it should or shouldn't be censored, is today available on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fr/movie/les-amants/id1112874509?l=en https://itunes.apple.com/fr/movie/les-amants/id1112874509?l=...
megablast 6y ago
> “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it. Which means different app reviewers will have different interpretations of it. A problem that exists now.
- WilTimSon 6y ago
  They know this and they don't care. It's not like Apple users can just go "well screw this" and download apps from a different source easily. They'd have to switch to Android to do it or have to be technologically inclined.
  - design-material 6y ago
    And that's fine - Apple users knew that was the deal when they decided to get an iPhone over Android (for many that was why they made that decision)
    - thekyle 6y ago
      I see this a lot, but do they really? I'm sure the technical Apple users knew what they were getting themselves into but most average Joe users I've run into that have iPhones for other reasons like: needing iMessage to talk with family, liking the UI, wanting to sync with their Mac, etc. None of which require Apple to have a monopoly on app distribution. Saying Apple users knew what they were getting into is kinda like saying Apple users agreed to the ToS, so they shouldn't complain.
      - wruza 6y ago
        You don't expect from average Joe to formulate the exact value of their phone on demand. There may be much more behind these phrases, but they are simply not used to articulating the full difference, cause they do not discuss it often, and they have less vocabulary for that kind of thing. What we should not do, is treating average Joes as idiots with no knowledge. They are non-tech, but not clueless. If you ask one of them about installing apps from the internet, they will likely remember that guy who told them it may be unsafe and it's better to stick with official store. PC users will definitely know about viruses and other "in the wild" hazards. Even my life-long non-tech grandma asked me about dangers and banking app practices when I brought her a tablet. Personally I even bet that many of android users want/pretend apple safety or think that these two platforms are probably as safe as apple. They do not know what they are getting info, they assume that, because why wouldn't you.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
elteto 6y ago
That quote even has its own wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
- wruza 6y ago
  For more context, it ruled out a false positive and pushed the boundary further, not vice versa: I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. The Supreme Court of the United States reversed the conviction by ruling that the film was not obscene and so was constitutionally protected. Absurdly, apple opponents itt use its completely opposite meaning in their arguments.
spondyl 6y ago
> In 1981 Justice Stewart commented about his second thoughts about coining the phrase. "In a way I regret having said what I said about obscenity—that's going to be on my tombstone. When I remember all of the other solid words I've written," he said, "I regret a little bit that if I'll be remembered at all I'll be remembered for that particular phrase."
- a1369209993 6y ago
  Good. Considering how much damage he did to the right to free speech (and less importantly the legitimacy of the supreme court), he deserves to not be remembered for anything else.
m3kw9 6y ago
Why? Because they didn’t tell you the “algorithm”?
elwell 6y ago
> inaccurate or misleading quotations of religious texts I find it fascinating that they included ^this^ one.
burtonator 6y ago
So they block Safari right, because I can definitely see sexual content in Safari.
- bromuro 6y ago
  “Yes the web is the bad place, with porn and such: you should use apps instead”. After all, in the apps “look better”.
- simonh 6y ago
  The exception for web browsers also extends to Firefox, Chrome, etc on the App Store so that exception is applied consistently.
olliej 6y ago
Why would court opinions matter here? Seriously, private stores have always had the choice of what products they sell, the alternative is being able to force people to sell your product against their will. No, anything here has to be purely a question of whether Apple or Google are acting unfairly, and everything I’ve seen says that the commissions involved match other hardware manufacturers.
numpad0 6y ago
> defined ... as “explicit descriptions or displays of sexual organs or activities intended to ... wait, is this going to be a basis for pixelated/black bar’d porn on App Store
jasonlfunk 6y ago
I think it’s okay for Apple to remain vague here. The internet can be a weird and terrible place. By phrasing it like this, Apple can prevent all kinds of creative forms of harassment and discrimination. Instead of allowing bad actors to try to play the game of finding terrible loopholes to jump through.
m463 6y ago
A page out of the constitution - "high crimes and misdemeanors" - deliberately overtly vague.

ciarannolan 6y ago

I can't believe they were dumb enough to put that SCOTUS line in this. It just plays into their current "meh, here's some rules but we'll do whatever we want anyway" image.

ForHackernews 6y ago
It's their treehouse; they can do what they want. None of these platforms are your friend. Half the Apple devs I know have some kind of stockholm syndrome, though.
- xnyan 6y ago
  Apple owns the platform. I'm still going to try and change how they do business because that would be better for me. Everyone is allowed to do that and there's nothing wrong with it. If you want to give up your power as a person to try to affect change, that's cool but I'm not giving up any non-immoral tool I have.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Or just maybe they like making money on the mobile platform where people will actually spend money?
  - dmonitor 6y ago
    The crazy part is the people who fly into fits of rage when you suggest Apple could do something differently. Changing the web browser on iOS was one that would get tons of hate and responses like “you don’t need that! it would confuse people!” Then Apple lets people do it and now they’re okay with it
    - SahAssar 6y ago
      You still can't change the browser on iOS. All the other "browsers" are heavily restricted skins over a webview, not a proper other browser.
      - design-material 6y ago
        And that's OK; if it wasn't for Apple then Google would essentially own the current and future direction of the web by now
        likeclockwork 6y ago
        with their sandbagged browser that they only bother to update once a year? Firefox is the competition for Chrome, Safari is just a sandbag to hold open the gap between web apps and native apps.
        scarface74 6y ago
        Apple updates the browser between major OS updates. Apple added YubiKey support (https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/12/12/apple-ios-13-3-is-here-bringing-support-for-keyfobby-authentication/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2019/12/12/apple-ios-13-3-i...) for 2FA in Safari in 13.3 and they added better mouse support to Safari as well as other built in apps between major releases. Firefox is losing market share and almost completely dependent on Google for its survival. If Firefox tries not to support something that the rest of the industry is supporting (like the web based DRM) the rest of the industry just yawns.
        6y ago
_jal 6y ago
I'm really surprised. Did Apple shake up their PR or legal flacks? The language they've used recently (I'm thinking of the Epic stuff, too) feels different than their famously cool, considered tone; looser, more assertive, and much easier to argue with.
- pier25 6y ago
  I agree. Sentences like "we think that you will also know it when you cross it" are extremely arrogant.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  I disagree. They have always been this arrogant. You are just noticing it right now. Do you remember when they essentially said don't run to the press if we don't allow your app, it won't help you, which I personally interpreted as or else? Or how almost every time someone criticizes Apple they sandwich a one-sentence criticism between 50 sentences of praise because they know the cost of not doing that could be their entire business? Since the launch of iPhone, Apple has been the 800lb gorilla in the room and has acted like it. EDIT: From App Store Review Guidelines on September 2014: > "If your App is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps." https://web.archive.org/web/20140903022336/https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140903022336/https://developer...
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    Which is such a lie, because going to the press is exactly what gets a lot of apps re-evaluated and accepted.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - dclowd9901 6y ago
      Eh, it _can_ be a lie. This is some form of the quandary “if you owe the bank a million dollars, you’re in trouble; if you owe the bank a billion dollars, the bank is in trouble.” 99% of app devs will not benefit from “running to the press.” Those that will will know it for certain.
scarface74 6y ago
Everything is a judgment call. You can no more spell out everything that is considered explicit than your HR department can spell out everything that might constitute harassment.
madeofpalk 6y ago
For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure that line's been in there since the review guidelines were public, years ago.
- input_sh 6y ago
  I found an article from 6 years ago that quotes that line, so at least since then: https://www.theregister.com/Print/2014/09/04/apple_new_app_store_guidelines_for_developers/ https://www.theregister.com/Print/2014/09/04/apple_new_app_s...
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
If I remember correctly, the SCOTUS reference dates back to when Steve Jobs was CEO. I am, um, not at all surprised he put that in the guidelines. The guidelines also used to say: > If your App looks like it was cobbled together in a few days, or you're trying to get your first practice App into the store to impress your friends, please brace yourself for rejection. We have lots of serious developers who don't want their quality Apps to be surrounded by amateur hour. You can tell this was personally written by Steve. --- Taken from https://web.archive.org/web/20140903022336/https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://web.archive.org/web/20140903022336/https://developer.... This is the earliest available in the Internet Archive as far as I can tell; circa-2012 they were kept behind an account login.
- chipotle_coyote 6y ago
  I've heard anecdotally that Steve Jobs helped write those guidelines, and the "amateur hour" line in particular sure sounds like him. I don't mean that in a disparaging way; Jobs could certainly be a jerk, but there are times I wish more CEOs were willing to be that blunt in official communication.
  - ksec 6y ago
    And to be honest it make sense in the early days. Jobs wanted the absolute best Apps in the Apps Store. Situation now is different though. Jobs would likely have some human touch in the current situation. Where as Tim Cook feels less so.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  Given how much amateur hour there is on the app store, I think they might as well remove that rule...
- crehn 6y ago
  That sounds like a good guideline to be honest. Perhaps not the best-worded one, but gets the point across and avoids becoming another Google Play Store.
codeulike 6y ago
Its been there for years https://web.archive.org/web/20160706210122/https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160706210122/https://developer...

Shivetya 6y ago

well at least he upheld the First Amendment when uttering that statement but the rest of his text basically shows he knew that First Amendment rights were more important than his moral code and asked if he could define what would cross the line he could not do so satisfactory. Now as to Apple, I don't have to buy their products and if I do I know what to expect. If it really mattered or should I say bothered me enough I certainly would buy a different product. Right now my Apple purchases are on hold for their virtue signaling and effective turning their backs on abuses in China and Hong Kong. Apple Human Rights Warranty, Void where prohibited by law.

Bud 6y ago
Abuses in China? So what are you planning to purchase instead? Because Apple is doing better with worker rights in China than any competitor is.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > So what are you planning to purchase instead? E.g.: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ But the issue wasn't about manufacturing to begin with. The trouble is that Apple have significant operations in China, which makes them subject to influence by China, while at the same time maintaining control over what their users see and what they see about their users. A less vertically integrated company wouldn't have that problem.
- antihero 6y ago
  As an Apple user I'd like to believe this but it would be good to get some citation on that.
scarface74 6y ago
So are you not going to buy any electronic items?

npunt 6y ago

Not sure if what you're arguing against is judgment calls, or against the fallout of that supreme court ruling, but to address the use of judgment, the nature of curation is that it's not always something that can be put in a set of explicit rules. There's always people that walk right up to and over the line and generally push boundaries and find loopholes, no matter how well written rules are. Human judgment needs to be a part of the process if a good experience is desired. Now it can be argued that Apple doesn't execute on this approach particularly well, but the idea that they want to be able to make some judgment calls is perfectly valid and if done right leads to the best experience.

theferalrobot 6y ago
> Human judgment needs to be a part of the process if a good experience is desired Yeah just to second this I think that a lot of us coming from software backgrounds like to think of laws as being code, fully definable, automatable and capable of covering all edge cases. This isn’t the case. Judgement is required. Not to ruin my own metaphor but I actually think there is a lesson about software as well. Software is not something capable of perfection. There is no perfect code, everything is a bodge, some bodges are more useful than others. You can’t cover every edge case. Software evolves and has flaws much like the product of natural evolution.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  One observation I've made about laws vs code is that the former allows for the use of some very... convenient descriptors. The best one is "reasonable". It's used all the time in legal agreements, and it's exactly the type of mushy concept you could never explain to a computer. And I think that's healthy. Laws are written for people, not computers, and as far as I can (I'm very much not a lawyer), everyone basically agrees on what "reasonable" means. Furthermore, I'm not sure what we'd do without that word, because you can't realistically outline every possible scenario in advance.
- npunt 6y ago
  Agree. Decision environments are high dimensional spaces that human judgment can tap into. Laws and rules are ways to compress that space, but the compression is lossy and can lead to a divergence between the letter of the rule and its intent. And to add more complexity to the situation, laws and rules are but static snapshots within a dynamic system, and may simply drift away from intent with the progression of time and people's viewpoints. Kind of like a really old keyframe in a compressed video that starts smearing from the accumulation of too many changes.

shaftway 6y ago

I completely agree. When rules aren't codified it invites biased interpretation of them. However.... I've worked on an internal communications platform. For some reason people would forget that they were on a corporate site with their corporate email linked to it and spew garbage that any decent person would be embarrassed to say out loud. So we deliberately didn't codify our rules. We chose not to because we were aware that if we did then people would deliberately cozy up as close to the line as they could, and that wasn't the kind of environment we wanted to foster. We avoided bias by removing information about the flagger or flagee when content was flagged and judged it based on the content ourselves. After we judged we'd look up who was responsible for the content, and if we felt they were doing some penetration testing to see exactly where those lines were we would start to loop in their manager, HR, legal, and anyone else we felt should be aware. Our escalation procedure went up to banning, though nobody ever reached that point. And our content improved. If the story ended there I would still be against not having codified rules, but begrudgingly accept that it worked in that situation. Unfortunately the story doesn't end there. Staff was hired so that engineers wouldn't be responsible for this. The staff was less familiar with the ecosystem and they proceeded to clamp down more and more on acceptable content. They cozied up to HR and legal who were never really comfortable with the permissiveness of the platform, and received praise and additional funding to grow the team for these clampdowns. I left the project and haven't looked back. You're right, "I'll know it when I see it" is a garbage sentiment that at best is a cop out, but too often is used to withhold rules and keep people in the dark as a power play, or even squash dissenters with arbitrary and unbalanced application of force.

baybal2 6y ago
To begin with, I think they made it to accommodate Tencent, who once threatened to pull Wechat from App Store if they don't let them use their own payments. First, they used them for transfers only, but later came games, and etc.
- Hokusai 6y ago
  Because it is not about fairness or rules. It is about extracting as much values as possible from app developers. That made sense when the Apple store was a small kind of start up enterprise. Nowadays, it should be regulated so all developers can use the platform in a level field where competition is real and it is not just a game for big corporations.

LudwigNagasena 6y ago

> a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it. I personally think this is the worst line that ever came out of a Supreme Court decision because of how simple it is. It is such a blatant low effort cop out that legitimizes arbitrary rulings. At least usually they obfuscate it with legal jargon and historical rulings.

dawg- 6y ago
The quote is infamous for being a terribly useless statement. Not sure why they would want to use something like that to defend themselves
unishark 6y ago
I think of it as the legal version of the observation from psychology that some tasks (e.g. recognition of images) are performed by the brain without conscious understanding of the process.

modeless 6y ago

Interesting that the film at issue in the Supreme Court case, in which 6/9 justices disagreed about the reasons why it should or shouldn't be censored, is today available on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/fr/movie/les-amants/id1112874509?l=en https://itunes.apple.com/fr/movie/les-amants/id1112874509?l=...

megablast 6y ago

> “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it. Which means different app reviewers will have different interpretations of it. A problem that exists now.

WilTimSon 6y ago
They know this and they don't care. It's not like Apple users can just go "well screw this" and download apps from a different source easily. They'd have to switch to Android to do it or have to be technologically inclined.
- design-material 6y ago
  And that's fine - Apple users knew that was the deal when they decided to get an iPhone over Android (for many that was why they made that decision)
  - thekyle 6y ago
    I see this a lot, but do they really? I'm sure the technical Apple users knew what they were getting themselves into but most average Joe users I've run into that have iPhones for other reasons like: needing iMessage to talk with family, liking the UI, wanting to sync with their Mac, etc. None of which require Apple to have a monopoly on app distribution. Saying Apple users knew what they were getting into is kinda like saying Apple users agreed to the ToS, so they shouldn't complain.
    - wruza 6y ago
      You don't expect from average Joe to formulate the exact value of their phone on demand. There may be much more behind these phrases, but they are simply not used to articulating the full difference, cause they do not discuss it often, and they have less vocabulary for that kind of thing. What we should not do, is treating average Joes as idiots with no knowledge. They are non-tech, but not clueless. If you ask one of them about installing apps from the internet, they will likely remember that guy who told them it may be unsafe and it's better to stick with official store. PC users will definitely know about viruses and other "in the wild" hazards. Even my life-long non-tech grandma asked me about dangers and banking app practices when I brought her a tablet. Personally I even bet that many of android users want/pretend apple safety or think that these two platforms are probably as safe as apple. They do not know what they are getting info, they assume that, because why wouldn't you.

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elteto 6y ago

That quote even has its own wiki page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

wruza 6y ago
For more context, it ruled out a false positive and pushed the boundary further, not vice versa: I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. The Supreme Court of the United States reversed the conviction by ruling that the film was not obscene and so was constitutionally protected. Absurdly, apple opponents itt use its completely opposite meaning in their arguments.

spondyl 6y ago

> In 1981 Justice Stewart commented about his second thoughts about coining the phrase. "In a way I regret having said what I said about obscenity—that's going to be on my tombstone. When I remember all of the other solid words I've written," he said, "I regret a little bit that if I'll be remembered at all I'll be remembered for that particular phrase."

a1369209993 6y ago
Good. Considering how much damage he did to the right to free speech (and less importantly the legitimacy of the supreme court), he deserves to not be remembered for anything else.

m3kw9 6y ago

Why? Because they didn’t tell you the “algorithm”?

elwell 6y ago

> inaccurate or misleading quotations of religious texts I find it fascinating that they included ^this^ one.

burtonator 6y ago

So they block Safari right, because I can definitely see sexual content in Safari.

bromuro 6y ago
“Yes the web is the bad place, with porn and such: you should use apps instead”. After all, in the apps “look better”.
simonh 6y ago
The exception for web browsers also extends to Firefox, Chrome, etc on the App Store so that exception is applied consistently.

olliej 6y ago

Why would court opinions matter here? Seriously, private stores have always had the choice of what products they sell, the alternative is being able to force people to sell your product against their will. No, anything here has to be purely a question of whether Apple or Google are acting unfairly, and everything I’ve seen says that the commissions involved match other hardware manufacturers.

numpad0 6y ago

> defined ... as “explicit descriptions or displays of sexual organs or activities intended to ... wait, is this going to be a basis for pixelated/black bar’d porn on App Store

jasonlfunk 6y ago

I think it’s okay for Apple to remain vague here. The internet can be a weird and terrible place. By phrasing it like this, Apple can prevent all kinds of creative forms of harassment and discrimination. Instead of allowing bad actors to try to play the game of finding terrible loopholes to jump through.

m463 6y ago

A page out of the constitution - "high crimes and misdemeanors" - deliberately overtly vague.