Mrs. Grundy Works at Apple
Apple has taken a couple of hits lately. I'm not referring to its stock price - even with its stock price down, Apple is still the most highly capitalized company in America (Exxon/Mobil is second) - but in its software.
Apple is selling dirty apps.
Last week, it pulled the photo sharing app 500px for iOS from the App Store. 500px is a popular website for photographers, and its mobile apps have been downloaded by more than a million people. It had been doing fine in the App store for the past 16 months until an Apple reviewer noticed a serious problem. A user can use the app to search for… *gasp* Nekkid Pichurs! Won't someone please think of the children?
In fact, the app required you to open a browser, visit their website, and make an explicit change to your settings to be able to see nude photos in the app, which sounds like it would be hard for a child to stumble across them accidentally. Moreover, 500px doesn't allow explicit pornography, merely artistic nudes.
The difference between pornography and art is lighting, according to Gloria Leonard. According to Andrea Dworkin, there is no difference, you sadistic oppressive male pig. Apple apparently took the latter view.
The app was returned to the App Store today, with both an Adult Content warning when you download it and a "Report This Offensive Smut To The Authorities" button to help users tag content for potential removal from the site.
Meanwhile, Twitter came out with an app called Vine that allows the user to create ultra-short six-second videos to share with friends and family. How much trouble can you get into in six seconds? Plenty, it turns out.
The app had been among the new category of curated content called "Editor's Picks." Then someone noticed a link to pornographic content. It was behind a NSFW banner and didn't play automatically, but there it was. A Twitter spokesperson told The Verge, A human error resulted in a video with adult content becoming one of the videos in Editor’s Picks, and upon realizing this mistake we removed the video immediately. We apologize to our users for the error.
Shocked, shocked I am to find pornography on the Internet! Is nowhere safe?
The app now blocks searches for terms that might lead to salacious content, but it's not all that hard to work around. (Pro Tip: search for #nsfw.)
(GIF from Willa's World)
Where there is media, there is porn. The Wittenberg Venus was just the paleolithic Playboy centerfold. When I was a teen sneaking into the Tufts University Computer Center, there was a program that would create a pinup calendar from the big line printer. It was called SEXIST.PIG, and you had to stand across the room and squint to make out what could have been the image of a lounging female nude. The Mac really moved things forward with the ability to display bit-mapped graphics on its black-and-white 512x385 pixel screen.
But Apple doesn't want its good name sullied by smut, so Twitter Vine is no longer an Editor's Choice. The slavering addict of popular myth will just have to look elsewhere to satisfy his prurient urges. Let's see, I wonder what happens when I type "porn" into this LiveJournal search box.
Oh, dear. Oh, my...
Apple is selling dirty apps.
Last week, it pulled the photo sharing app 500px for iOS from the App Store. 500px is a popular website for photographers, and its mobile apps have been downloaded by more than a million people. It had been doing fine in the App store for the past 16 months until an Apple reviewer noticed a serious problem. A user can use the app to search for… *gasp* Nekkid Pichurs! Won't someone please think of the children?
In fact, the app required you to open a browser, visit their website, and make an explicit change to your settings to be able to see nude photos in the app, which sounds like it would be hard for a child to stumble across them accidentally. Moreover, 500px doesn't allow explicit pornography, merely artistic nudes.
The difference between pornography and art is lighting, according to Gloria Leonard. According to Andrea Dworkin, there is no difference, you sadistic oppressive male pig. Apple apparently took the latter view.
The app was returned to the App Store today, with both an Adult Content warning when you download it and a "Report This Offensive Smut To The Authorities" button to help users tag content for potential removal from the site.
Meanwhile, Twitter came out with an app called Vine that allows the user to create ultra-short six-second videos to share with friends and family. How much trouble can you get into in six seconds? Plenty, it turns out.
The app had been among the new category of curated content called "Editor's Picks." Then someone noticed a link to pornographic content. It was behind a NSFW banner and didn't play automatically, but there it was. A Twitter spokesperson told The Verge, A human error resulted in a video with adult content becoming one of the videos in Editor’s Picks, and upon realizing this mistake we removed the video immediately. We apologize to our users for the error.
Shocked, shocked I am to find pornography on the Internet! Is nowhere safe?
The app now blocks searches for terms that might lead to salacious content, but it's not all that hard to work around. (Pro Tip: search for #nsfw.)
(GIF from Willa's World)
Where there is media, there is porn. The Wittenberg Venus was just the paleolithic Playboy centerfold. When I was a teen sneaking into the Tufts University Computer Center, there was a program that would create a pinup calendar from the big line printer. It was called SEXIST.PIG, and you had to stand across the room and squint to make out what could have been the image of a lounging female nude. The Mac really moved things forward with the ability to display bit-mapped graphics on its black-and-white 512x385 pixel screen.
But Apple doesn't want its good name sullied by smut, so Twitter Vine is no longer an Editor's Choice. The slavering addict of popular myth will just have to look elsewhere to satisfy his prurient urges. Let's see, I wonder what happens when I type "porn" into this LiveJournal search box.
Oh, dear. Oh, my...