Apple changes App Store policy on 'overtly sexual content' - Page 2

If I heard you right you said, "Apple can't do that because I don't want them to!"

So to deny a company from deciding what it will and will not sell is no longer the right of the company?

What kind of freedom is that? You have a really skewed view if you think that what you are suggesting isn't worse.

Unbelievable how quickly and blindly people impinge on other people's rights in demand for their personal wants.

a quick search of the Blackberry store, palm pre store, android store all did not turn up any seemingly sexual apps.

hmmm?

maybe they don't have the developers
or
perhaps they have some restrictions as well...

Nothing. Brick and mortar stores shouldn't try to be my mother either. The fact that they often try, I find just as offensive. I purchase what I decide is appropriate to me, and leave the rest on the shelf. I also note which stores censor - where music is offered in altered versions, where magazines are limited to the mundane - and I make a concerted effort to buy my media elsewhere. Because I have a choice. With Apple, I have no choice. You can only get apps from Apple. This creates a very important difference between shopping brick and mortar, and Apple - not so much brick and digital, because the Internet, as we all know, is well populated with sources that do not attempt to mother the consumer.


The comparison is not sensible. Apple has elected to control the entire app ecosystem. There is nowhere else to get an app of this type; it is apps we are talking about here. In the case of a video store, there are choices. Here, there are none.


Yet again, you can get porn delivered in the same form elsewhere. Not true of apps.


No. Apple is gearing its product for consumers who aren't interested, or are offended by, porn. That is not, by any stretch of the imagination, "all consumers."


No. They prefer to make money attempting to assume the mother-role, something far more offensive in my view.


I'm laughing at you, and you probably don't even know why, do you?


Yes, I can see that. Nor am I surprised, given the viewpoint you espouse.


I can't put it any simpler than this: Your "decency" is not someone else's "decency." Likewise, Apple's "decency" is not everyone else's "decency." There is no "general decency." People differ. To some, a work may be porn; to others, a work of art; to others, simply uninteresting. My position is simply that the consumer should be the one to make the determination. Not the vendor of the media or the item.

This is precisely what he was calling "American sensitivities".

Yes, but somewhere in that neighborhood is a restaurant that serves nachos because a lot of people want and pay good money for them.

The App Store is a neighborhood with no nacho serving restaurants because a few intolerant people complained they don't like nachos.

What Apple should so is allow the nacho serving restaurants and tell the minority complainers to stay out of that part of the neighborhood where they are located.

Sell your iphone. When you accepted the EULA you entered into the environment of Apple's appstore.

If you sell your iphone Apple will no longer be censoring you in any way

Unlike your DVD player from Samsung (which is a point of sale transaction without a continuing service agreement from Samsung), the iphone is by its nature as a phone a material and service purchase. Companies that provide services all have an absolute right to arbitrarily determine that service. You have the right not to purchase or end the service relationship.

Actually, the Appstore is just the mega store in your neighborhood analogy. There are plenty of other stores, but you have to get in your safari car and drive to them.

Also, when you drive your safari car you can get to all kinds of other stores, some that have backroom porn sections, and even some that advertise porn in the front window.

It's most likely a company PR problem.

Imagine if people started sporting porn app images on their iPhones in inappropriate places like at work, at schools etc what that would do for iPhone sales...

Most likely the devices would get banned from those places as a distraction/harassment, and that would affect sales.


Notice how cable companies and hotels have porn channels? Intended to be viewed in privacy?


People consume porn in privacy, the phones are a usually portable and not a privacy used device.




Then again Safari can be used to surf for porn and images too on the iPhone, so that sort of defeats my argument.

So there really shouldn't be any App Store restrictions on Adult content, since one can get it anyway through the browser.

This is total nonsense.

That's a friggin riot! Google's auto-generated ads can be funny at times too.


"Get F***ed at Amazon.com!"

thank god!! I was tired of seeing all these apps with 18 year old girls with no boobies with little bars across them..

I would not want my kids having that garbage, and I would not want a developer to make a penny off of it.

If you want porn, just download it, and add it to itunes..

If you watch porn on your ipod or iphone, you are weak as it is...

It appears some air has been seeping over from Disney...

If Apple wants to be Puritan about it, give the App Store a "mature" section. Problem solved.

And if that were the case, it would be out of sheer stupidity. Common sense says that porn can be found on anything. Paper. Magazine. Computer. Phone. Any palate anywhere in the world can contain porn.

Apple is free to do as it wishes, but it SHOULD NOT be doing this. It SHOULD be categorizing these apps differently, so only the people who want them, will find them.

If you give your child under 18 an iPhone or iPod touch and don't activate parental controls, you have voided any opnion on this subject.

For those over 18, this is a non issue. If you're over 18 and take issue with this, you need help.

And you think that it only happens in the US?

International coordination of law enforcement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_p...aw_enforcement Even in Brazil

Brazilian police in large operation against child pornography
http://www.safernet.org.br/site/noti...-pornography-0

Google Finally Agrees To Fight Child Pornography In Brazil
http://www.accuracast.com/search-dai...phy-in-brazil/

It's only a cesspool until you need porn, then it's wonderful.

What Apple could do is make it safe to view porn, channel it safely instead of ignoring it, because it's never going away.

Stay on topic, please. Do not turn this into a debate regarding the severity of child pornography in the world. You're barking up the law of percentages and its purely argumentative.

Do not force me to start sending you articles about the government-run child slavery rings occurring all over the world....slightly more severe problem.

I was the same in that I didn't know where I stand on this issue until I read this:


That reminded me that I'm against censorship!

Personally, I don't mind if they put adult apps on the App Store, as long as they have a way to stop children getting them.

My gripe about the App Store is the incredible amount of near identical apps that people have created for free making it difficult to navigate through for something I would like.

Anyone can pull up porn within seconds on any Internet-connected device.
Last time I checked not too many businesses or schools were banning computers...

When you say Apple "SHOULD NOT" and Apple "SHOULD", aren't you doing what you accuse Apple of doing?

But most businesses and all of government will fire you if you get caught surfing porn on their systems.

You probably get in trouble at schools as well.

Because the public can choose their bookstores but if they want apps on their iPhone, they only have one choice.

I don't have any "adult" apps on my phone, nor would I ever, but it doesn't make any sense to me to block anything based on a subjective opinion on what should be allowed, based on personal tastes or "values" of a certain group. I would react similarly if Apple decided that since most of the current popular music is crap, they shouldn't sell it on iTunes.

I agree, if you read my earlier posts, that Apple has a wonderful opportunity to provide clean, safe, ADULT viewing material for the law abiding public at large with a separate (age verified) Adult App Store section and make a bundle of cash doing so in the process.

I was thinking in the post you quoted why Apple doesn't do this, and it's because it might be a image problem for Apple. But then cable companies have no problem having porn channels and the iPhone can get porn images over the web browser.

So what really is the problem right?

I love how there are so many idiots out there who love to throw up the "censorship" flag and "free speech" argument.

APPLE IS A CORPORATION...THEY ARE NOT THE GOVERNMENT.

They have every right to determine what they feel is appropriate content for their store. It is not YOUR RIGHT to access certain content wherever you want. It just isn't. Part of the free economy is that corporations have the RIGHT to determine what to sell and what not to sell. If you don't like it, buy something different. Buy a different phone that you can access all of the porn you would like. Simple.

Censorship is a problem when it is managed by the government, not private corporations. That is when your rights are being infringed.

YOUR RIGHTS ARE NOT BEING TAKEN AWAY. You have NO RIGHT to define what a corporation sells. You have a RIGHT to buy from a different corporation. That's it.

And please stop complaining about sensitive Americans. If you feel that way, then stop buying American products. Another simple solution. Get over yourselves. You don't have all of the answers. In fact, I'm pretty sure the United States exists because there were lots of people who hated Europe. Interesting...

But the umbilical cord between iphone and the app store is plainly in view, and you bought the iphone anyway. How is it censorship if a writer decides not to use swear words in his novels? you can buy other novels, but none by that writer that have swear words. You can buy other phones that let you install what ever you want, but none by Apple.

Apple is censoring Apple not you. In no way have they restricted your actions (although it may at first appear that way), rather they have restricted their actions (they will not trade in "overtly sexual" apps). You are free to trade in them, just not with or through Apple.

Do you think you managed to get through to those that always see things from one-inch behind their nose? Good luck.

People telling Apple what they should be selling is far stupider than Apple deciding what to sell.

I agree, bringing illegal child porn into a topic about having legal adult content on the App Store is totally unrelated.

Everyone here (I hope) is against that sort of material and the harming of children, no need to derail the thread.


What we need is a safe avenue for viewing legal Adult material without the hassles and risks of surfing for it online.

Apple has a App Store that polices apps and content, which would make a excellent way to distribute legal material to a hungry audience for law abiding adult content producers and consumers.

Absolutely, and which gets to my point: It's a matter of making responsible choices.

It will be interesting to see how Apple navigates this.

You are wrong. Plain and simple. You are making the determination. You don't have to own an iPhone/iPod Touch. Simple. The vendor ABSOLUTELY has the right to determine what it wants to sell whether you can purchase the content somewhere else or not.

Do some basic studies about economics and American economics specifically, then come back and review your post.

Your right is to choose to purchase a product or not to purchase a product. That's it. Just get a different phone/media device and stop whining like a 2-year-old.

Then report me. I'll abide by the moderator's decision.

But people also had the right to buy a product other than Windows when Microsoft decided to push people towards Internet Explorer and to destroy Netscape, yet Microsoft was eventually found to have broken the law.

There is a point when a product becomes so dominant that they do have to be held to account.

I'm not sure Apple is there at the moment, but at what point would they be putting the peddlers of porn at a competitive disadvantage because their product is not available on the iPad/iPhone?

Another book analogy, that I've used here before:

Let's say you buy a bookshelf from me. Fair enough. Now, as part of the deal you can only populate that bookshelf with books approved by & purchased though me. WTF?

NOW, I come along and say that books you've purchased before are now "inappropriate", and you can no longer get books like those. Double WTF!

If I were the owner, I'd be ready to pitch the damn bookshelf for one that didn't come with such a controlling agreement.

I understand this is about the image, brand, and reputation of the App Store, which Apple has every right to maintain and defend. BUT when the App Store is the only legal source of iPhone apps, why should my choices be censored by Apple's interests?

So, they ban this but highlight the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit app. Yeah, no mixed messages there. I mean, what could be overtly sexual about naked women body-painted?

I don't care for either app, or care what Apple's policies are on sexual content. But I can see why it drives developers nuts trying to figure out if Apple actually has any policies--or is just flying by the seat of its pants.

Billions of dollars a year in marketing of all kinds of products tells me what you see does produce a change in behavior. To not link pornography and increased sexual deviance is an unfortunately all too common mistake, but a necessary one to justify the argument for immoral content. I respect people and their opinions, but you make a statement with nothing but emotion to back it up. I simply present evidence to the contrary.

That said, everyone should realize that Apple is first and always a business. I've no doubt the decision was much more likely a PR and image one than a moral one. It'd be nice if businesses just did the right thing for it's own sake, but even Apple's 'green' push goes a long way to making them more marketable and profitable. It's basic economics.

I'm not saying child pornography doesn't happen. I'm saying it is too much to say that any sexual content will lead to child pornography. Even the current (already very limited) "sexual" content of the App Store has nothing to do with that.

Apple can do what it wants, but it if wants to be a mainstream content provider, they shouldn't limit themselves this way. There's nothing wrong with erotism and sexuality, and to say the opposite is what I call american sensitivity. It seems Apple is being forced to stay out of that big market because of that moralism. If they just decided to allow it and make a mature section of the iStore we would even get much better content than the iBoobs we have today.

I never called it censorship, but I do think it's a dumb decision. I think businesses in general should cater to the largest market possible, and a lot of poeple here have already suggested better ways that Apple could have handled this issue. Plus, like some other people here, I think the puritanical thing is pretty pathetic and hypocritical--and this comes from a guy who was brought up in a very old fashioned family whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower!

I am an iPhone owner, but the only way this decision impacts me personally is that a good chunk of my savings is in Apple stock. Sure, I could sell it and try to buy stock in a company that's just as good in every way except that I agree with their decisions 100% of the time instead of 98%, but I don't think that's all that easy.

But imagine for a moment that you already own an iPhone, as quite a few people do. When you bought it, one of the selling points might have been, "Cool, I can download raunchy apps and check them out on the long train ride home." One might argue that one of the "features" of the product you purchased has been removed without your permission. Sure, people here might offer the helpful advice of buying an Android phone, but that might be too expensive for some, and the Android phone might not be as good for other reasons. It's not much of a solution to the problem. When you buy the phone, if you're well informed you know that Apple has control over the content on the App Store, but there's a certain degree of trust involved; they could probably completely stop selling apps altogether and it would be within their legal rights, but I'm sure there would be a number of disgruntled comments in this forum and others.

I don't see how the iPhone owner is still free to trade in "overtly sexual" apps without jailbreaking or buying another phone.

I understand Porn is such a necessity to humanity, but does it has to be on every electronic device out there? I think its a good idea to remove it from App Store. If people are that desperate to watch it then there are other means to do so. Maybe they can get an Android or something.

Absolutely true, but not quite that simple.

There are precedents for certain classes of carriers to be excused from violations because they are "common carriers". For example, the phone company is not an accessory to terrorism because their lines are used to plan crimes; they are a common carrier. The municipal bus company is not an accesory to robbery because they provided a getaway vehicle to the theif; they are a common carrier.

So too, websites are not responsible for content if they let anything and everything be put up there (with certain exceptions). But if they pick and choose, and choose to publish libel, the situation is different.

If Apple is picking and choosing the apps that are allowed to be on the iSore, then they might be deemed responsible for them. I am not aware of anything directly on point at this time, but the law evolves.

In other contexts, Apple could run afoul of existing laws, if, for example, they had a policy of not selling apps created by protected minorities.

So in general, yes, Apple is free to sell or not sell apps they don't like. But there are many exceptions to the general rule, and IMO, Apple should tread carefully.

Yeah, right! This is total BS designed to scare people.

I've watched A LOT of porn on the internet, and I've NEVER seen real child porn. I think most of this is an urban myth and propegated by people trying to get high views/hits.



God, they also found that child molesters spend most of their day BREATHING, so anyone who breathes is likely to be a child molester!