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If it was rejected due to its "politically charged" content, what would be the difference between that and censorship?
by tjogin 17y ago
If it was rejected due to its "politically charged" content, what would be the difference between that and censorship?
- stingraycharles 17y agoBecause Apple makes it very clear in their TOS that they don't want that. And obviously, the iSinglePayer app is politically charged. The developer of the app decided to develop it anyway, and now he's claiming he's being censored. It's kind of silly, actually. People seem to think they have some fundamental right to be approved into the AppStore, which is simply not the case.
- tjogin 17y agoHow does making something clear in a TOS not make this censorship? Censorship, as defined by Wikipedia: "Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations as determined by a censor." How is this not censorship on Apple's behalf? I'm not saying they're not in their right to censor the content on their AppStore, I'm just saying it is censorship.
- stingraycharles 17y agoOkay, according to that definition, you may be right. Ultimately, I think it's up to a judge to decide; censorship is not as black and white. Take Google for example. They automatically filter various type of sites from their index (phishing, link farms, etc). According to the definition on Wikipedia, that is censorship too: it's communicative material, which is considered harmful by Google.
- tjogin 17y agoWhy would the definition of the word 'censorship' be up to a judge to decide? And why would a judge be involved at all? It isn't illegal to censor something. The fact that this is censorship doesn't mean that Apple aren't in their right to do so. They are, as much as I dislike it. Voicing one's discontent with their policy is probably the only way we can make them change it, though.
- stingraycharles 17y agoOk in that case, indeed, censorship can be applied. But to me, that means it completely loses its value: in essence, it would be the same as "filtering", which I don't think is the intent of the law.
- tjogin 17y agoIntent of what law? How does the law even come into this?
- stingraycharles 17y agoYou mean censorship isn't illegal in the US ? As far as I was aware, censorship is outlawed in most Western countries, by protecting freedom of speech.
- tjogin 17y agoAgain, I can't reply to your last post. Very weird. > Okay, so if I understand you correctly, freedom of speech is violated by censorship, but censorship doesn't always violate freedom of speech. Yeah, that sounds about right. Although I don't think it's called just "censorship" when, for instance, an oppressive government puts people in jail, or put them to death, for saying things the government doesn't like. Freedom of speech has absolutely nothing to do, what so ever, with private arenas. You are not protected by freedom of speech in a private arena, at all. Apple is censoring their App Store content, and they are within their legal right to do so. Generally speaking, although it is completely legal to censor content in a private arena, it is sort of frowned upon by its community. Usually. I think this is why the iPhone developer is crying foul, using the word "censorship", because people frown upon that practice.
- stingraycharles 17y agoOkay, you make a good case and I agree with your point. Thanks for the discussion. :)
- anigbrowl 17y agoThe problem is that there are approved iPhone apps which are overtly politically charged, like this one: http://www.conservativetalkingpoints.com/ http://www.conservativetalkingpoints.com/ So there's obviously a double standard, though I'd guess it's at the level of individual reviewers rather than Apple policy.