Apple Bans RSS Reader Due To Bad Word In Feed Link

btempleton writes "It all started when I prepared yet another Downfall subtitle parody. In this one, Hitler is the studio head, upset at all the Downfall parodies, and he wants to do DMCA takedowns on them all. (If you're a DMCA/DRM fighting Slashdotter, you'll like it.) The EFF, which I chair, blogged it on Deeplinks, and hilarity ensued. That weekend, Exact Magic, an iPhone developer, had submitted a special RSS reader app to display EFF news on the iPhone. Apple's iPhone app store evaluators looked at the RSS reader, read the feed it pointed to, and then played the linked-to video. They saw the F-word flash in the subtitles of the video, and then rejected the RSS-reading tool from the App Store. We're up to several levels of meta here — Apple has banned an app over a parody about banning, and is now parodying itself. Bonus: TFA also has the story of just how hard it is to be fully legal in obtaining the famous clip for parody."

Comments

Enough already, Apple

[Tokerat]

I'm an Apple fanboy and even I'm sick of this.

If they're not careful, pretty soon the PSP Go App Store is going to be the one making all the money. Hey Sony, PSPhone in the works?

Re:Enough already, Apple

[QuantumG]

Yeah.. it's pretty easy, you default to "Adults Only" mode, but you provide a "Clean Feed" mode which people can opt-in to. All your effort goes into bringing the "Clean Feed" up to date and, as such, even the kids won't want to use it, so one day you take a look at the numbers and say "why are we putting so much effort into this 1% of the market?" and get rid of it.

Re:Enough already, Apple

[0100010001010011]

How the fuck difficult is it to realize what an RSS reader does and to realize the app doesn't 'do' that content, it just gets it from the feed?

Does Apple have 5th graders reviewing this content?

Description: "This app downloads and displays pictures." It would be reasonable to assume that those pictures could be pornography. However that's not what the program does. Holy hell.

Re:Enough already, Apple

[i.of.the.storm]

Hell, by those standards they should block Safari, since it's much more likely and easier to access inappropriate content with. This is getting pretty ridiculous.

Re:Enough already, Apple

[Jurily]

How the fuck difficult is it to realize what an RSS reader does and to realize the app doesn't 'do' that content, it just gets it from the feed?

In fact, what's up with all that parental content bullshit? Is it going to scar children for life if they see a bad word? It's not like they don't hear enough in the television, their browser, their teacher ferchrissake.

Not to mention every other kid they come in contact with. Should we ban those too? Just lock them in a box or something.

Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that'll infect your soul,
curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.
"Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits"

Re:Enough already, Apple

[Z00L00K]

Censorship is more indecent than any use of profanity ever can be.

Someone has to make a reality check.

Re:Enough already, Apple

[teh kurisu]

But you can block Safari, if you're a parent and you want control over what your child does with their iPhone. It's under Settings > General > Restrictions.

What you can't do, however, is allow/block each and every application that your child might download from the App Store. You can block the installation of applications altogether, but it's rather obvious that Apple doesn't want you to do that - it cuts off a potential revenue stream for them.

Re:Enough already, Apple

[growse]

It's made by Apple. Of course Apple would rather decide for you what you want on your phone. It's all about the *experience* remember?

Re:Enough already, Apple

[PopeRatzo]

What you can't do, however, is allow/block each and every application that your child might download from the App Store.

Actually, I'd rather see parents have the ability to block apps than Apple, which ends up blocking them for all of us.

The bigger question should be: "Why would you buy a child an iPhone?" Don't they have special phones for parents who don't trust or spend any time with their children?

Re:Enough already, Apple

[PopeRatzo]

Should parents not have the choice as to whether to allow their kids to be exposed to bad language

They already have the choice of whether to buy their kids an iPhone.

I think Fisher-Price makes a colorful little phone that only lets kids phone home.

Apple does us no favors.

Re:Enough already, Apple

[smitty97]

You are using a privately owned store...

not if you're shopping for a car in the US these days...

Re:Enough already, Apple

[Resident Emil]

He's apparently thinking different.

Speaking as an Apple fanboi ...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

... I can think of two possibilities here.

1. Someone high up in the App Store hierarchy is completely batshit insane. They're a fundie wacko, or they're deathly afraid of the Think Of The Chiiildren wackos, or something like that. I really just can't believe that the orders to ban anything that can get dirty words from anywhere on the internet came down from upper management; they can't be that ignorant. So it's someone on a personal crusade who has just enough pull to make it work.

2. Apple basically wants to own every internet-enabled app on the iPhone, and they're using these dumb excuses to get rid of any competition. Sooner or later, they think, everything you do on the iPhone that isn't strictly local will go through an app bearing the Apple logo.

Either way, it's a dumb move. I'm one of those irritating smug Mac users everyone loves to whine about. The last five computers I've bought have been Macs, and the next five probably will be as well. Whenever anyone asks me about what to do with their malware-ridden PCs, I say, "get a Mac." And I was seriously considering getting an iPhone to go with my iPod and iEverythingElse ... but I'm not going to even think about it until Apple fixes whatever the hell is going on with the App Store. I really doubt I'm the only one.

Re:Speaking as an Apple fanboi ...

[Mr2001]

Speaking as an Apple critic, I think there's a possibility you missed:

3. Apple's system of approving apps has no objective guidelines, no oversight, and no accountability; the result is total fucking chaos. Individual testers are allowed to make decisions based on "offensiveness" criteria they make up themselves, and this particular app happened to be tested by an uptight moron who went to great lengths to find some reason to ban it.

Based on the stories I've heard about rejected apps being approved simply by resubmitting them, this might even be true. If so, Apple needs to fire a bunch of people, and then write a real set of guidelines so everyone inside and outside the company is on the same page.

Re:Speaking as an Apple fanboi ...

[beelsebob]

4. They have an automated script that launches the app, greps the text on screen for naughty words, checks it doesn't crash/access things it shouldn't/leak memory etc. and rejects apps before a human even looks at them.

I wonder if this is the right answer?

Re:Speaking as an Apple fanboi ...

[emlyncorrin]

But in this case, the "naughty words" are embedded into a video. So it's not just scanning the text, it would have to do OCR on each frame of the video too.

Modus operandi

[ianare]

Apple tries to suppress something it doesn't like, in a way sure to show everyone what a bunch of pricks they are, and yet no one will do a thing about it. News at 11.

Re:Apple == Nazis

[fractoid]

Cook the apple first, preferably in a delicious pastry crust. Isn't that the American way? :P

Re:Bad words?

[QuantumG]

There's slightly more to it than that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BcdY_wSklo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyNmGHpL11Q

It's feeling like a trap

[Toonol]

I managed to avoid the whole Apple experience; never bought an iPod, never bought a song from iTunes, never had any desire to get an iPhone. I'm feeling a bit relieved. The whole thing feels like a trap. If I had a thousand bucks tied up in all this interconnected web of apps, platforms, and media, with it's seemingly ever-constricting chains, I'd be pretty irritated.

Lesson I've learned? Always buy IP-violating, unregulated, cheap Chinese knockoffs.

Re:Bad words?

[Fred_A]

In other words, if there was no taboo against saying 'fuck', there would be no reason for Hitler to be saying 'fuck' in the first place. (Except maybe to his dear wife.)

Would a pissed-off Hitler saying
"My dear Himmler, I am thoroughly bothered by those irksome developments on the eastern front"
sound better to you than
"Fuck those damn Russians" ?

I have an idea to avoid this kind of fiasco

[Planar]

Publish all your contents under a license that says "you are not allowed to read/view/listen to this for purposes of reviewing or censorship", then sue their ass off when they do censor it. That would put the DMCA to good use, for once.

In other news, Apple i-sunglasses

[Kupfernigk]

Apple introduces special i-sunglasses that go completely opaque when near a beach, in case there are any topless women around (not sold in Europe).

Re:In other news, Apple i-sunglasses

[SharpFang]

because, unlike in the US, the sight of European topless girls doesn't cause anguish, disgust and general trauma.