Some Apple’s Clashes over Censorship
Apple’s censorship policy has been extremely interesting, a bit controversial and very weird. Steve Jobs himself proclaimed that he perceives protecting children from porn a primary company’s objective. Such a good will initiative, quite surprising of a monster corporation, is quite unexpected as anything unexpected always causes lots of troubles for others.
About 5,000 apps that have boobs, some sexual content or are otherwise titillating have been banned from the App Store. There are many apps that are on the verge if fail to meet Apple’s policy. A usual strategy of the company is to warn their developers first and ask for some adjustments. Most developers comply with the rules. For example, when Stern, a German weekly news magazine with a large audience, published a gallery of erotic photos as part of its editorial content it took Apple quite a short time to take down the entire app and its developers were asked to alter the content in order to submit the application to the App Store again.
The same thing happened to Bild, another large German newspaper printed daily. The weekly distributes its content to iPhone fans via a posh iPhone application. Last year the newspaper developing team had a strike of genius and released a special miniapp called Bildgirl, which displays a woman which moans and undresses every time the iPhone is shaken. It’s a mere fun, that 15-17 old teenagers like to share, so nothing offensive or abusive. But Apple didn’t like it and asked to put a bikini on the naked girl. The newspaper complied but several months ago Apple found another fault with Bild’s content, as they want to censor the naked girl that is part of the PDF version of the printed newspaper, which is accessible from the Bild application too. Apple doesn’t allow boobs on its screen, so all the abusive naked parts have already been pixilated and unrecognizable. It was the last straw and even the newspapers board now thinks it’s too much.
Bild Digital's CEO Donata Hopfen claimed: “Today they censor nipples, tomorrow editorial content.” The claim was supported by the Association of German Magazine Publishers which have asked the International Federation of the Periodical Press to make a complaint to Apple. The end of the struggle is yet unknown but it is hardly possible that Apple is going to lose it.
The latest scandal concerning the app approval happened to Ulysses Seen, an app of James Joyce’s classic novel, which featured too much nudity to be to Apple’s liking, and an edition of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest which has already pixilated a number of panels featuring two men kissing. The given censorship was quite in line with the Joyce and Wilde literature heritage. They both struggled it while alive and the battle seems to continue after their deaths. But the end of the story was a happy one, after the public outcry the company had to comply.
And what’s more there are other evidences that the company can not keep its requirements straight, as the Sun's iPad app Page Three Girls could feature all the topless glory of women nudity. And Apple liked it or neglected it.