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Apple Blocks Cartoonist From App Store
ink writes "Here is another troubling anecdote on the iWeb front: 'This week cartoonist Mark Fiore made Internet and journalism history as the first online-only journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize. Fiore took home the editorial cartooning prize for animations he created for SFGate, the website for the San Francisco Chronicle... But there's just one problem. In December, Apple rejected his iPhone app, NewsToons, because, as Apple put it, his satire "ridicules public figures," a violation of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which bars any apps whose content in "Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory."' Whether or not you agree with Fiore's political sentiments, I believe we can all agree that the censorship of his work should be denigrated."
Yes, Apple has a locked down system that rejects apps for arbitrary reasons.
This is a known fact, can we stop pretending its "stuff that matters?"
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
... I don't own a Mac, iPhone, iPod, or any other iStuff. Apple does produce some really great technology. But I just can't deal with the whole Apple technology ecosystem. The company, its developers, and its users buy into a really obnoxious kind of groupthink, typified by those weird lovefests where the audience goes orgasmic every time Steve demonstrates something. Can you imagine any other place where they'd even consider a rule against "ridiculing public figures"? Gives a certain irony to that stupid commercial.
Chairmans Mao and Stalin would be proud.
Except unlike IBM or MS, Apple has never held a monopoly on anything. Its funny how people on Slashdot will both be quick to point out how the iPhone's market share is smaller than other smartphones yet at the same time will try to also claim that Apple is a monopoly. You can't have it both ways.
The difference between Apple and Microsoft in these actions is like the difference between an old man shouting to get off their lawn and a protection racket.
Unless you choose to play on the old man's lawn, he doesn't affect you. He's a jerk, but he's avoidable, much like Apple is.
Microsoft is more like the protection racket; either strong vigilante action (for which Linux is emblematic) or law enforcement are the only way to stand up to those guys.
The CB App. What's your 20?
"Whether or not you agree with Fiore's political sentiments, I believe we can all agree that the censorship of his work should be denigrated."
The righteous never think that what they say is propaganda.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Apple displays monopolistic, i.e. anti-competitive, behaviour. Who cares whether they're a monopoly? unless your aim is to punish success (i.e. Microsoft) out of spite rather than to stop activity which is damaging to the marketplace.
I take it you've never heard of network censors?
Hint: Network censors don't work for the government, they aren't government agents, and the rules they impose are often more restrictive than those required by the FCC.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Of course it's censorship. It's just not illegal censorship, since Apple is a private corporation.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
No, its more like the old man invites you onto his lawn and then has you arrested for trespassing.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Why should they allow you to install any app you want?
Because it's my phone, my hardware, I paid for it with my money. Apple does not own it, nor any piece of it. I have the full right to use the software it came with in any way I see fit. And I have the right to put whatever software I want on it.
Apple tries to assert that I do not have that right. Apple's only valid assertion is that if I install software from another source that they shouldn't have to support my stuff any more. Fine, void my warranty. It's still my device.
John
Read iCon the bio of Jobs that Jobs hated so much that he banned all Wiley books from Apple stores.
iCon is available for the Kindle. Some Kindle books are available for the iPad. "iCon" does not appear to be one of them.
The real reason that Apple is censoring applications by Mark Fiore is that he led the way in doing animated cartoons in Flash.
Regardless of whether you agree with his views (and I think it's entirely possible for you to make your own choice whether to install an app whose function is to deliver political satire) his work is widely regarded as technically innovative and artistically stylish. And the Apple principals can't stand to be seen in conflict with anyone more innovative and stylish than they are.
So rather than have him outclass them at the party, they'll just escort him out of the house, so to speak. There you go Apple, problem solved!
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
If Apple was the telephone company and it blocked the ability of Mr Fiore to communicate his satire to me, I think we would agree that (regardless of Apple's ownership of the wires) this was censorship, that it was bad, and that it should not be allowed. Indeed there are regulations to this effect.
If Microsoft implemented something in Windows that blocked my ability to view Mr Fiore's cartoons on my PC, I think we would be likely to come to the same conclusion. In this case it I own the computer; there is a strong argument to be made that I should be able to choose how to use it.
Now say I own an iPad. Mr Fiore would like to distribute his cartoons to me. Apple owns the app store, and they say No. They have implemented technical measures to prevent me from finding another way to get Mr Fiore's work onto the device I own. Furthermore, there is a law in place - the DMCA - that makes it illegal for me to work around those restrictions - even though I own the device, even though Mr Fiore would like to communicate (or sell) his work to me.
In other words, the government has already intervened in this situation. It has done so on Apple's behalf. Citizens have every right to intervene in the public interest.
As a society we use companies in the market as means to ends. We value communication; we have found the market is an effective way of enabling it. We have therefore regulated in order to create markets (through property rights, enforcement of contracts, and so on). We regulation different modes of communication in different ways. The telephone system is one example. The PC is another. Sometimes that regulation is done through government statutes, sometimes through regulatory bodies, sometimes the market is the regulating mechanism.
Your technical question of whether Apple's actions constitute a dictionary or legal definition of "censorship" ignores any ethical considerations. I think Apple's actions here are bad. I am not interested in "hating" Apple because it is a company fulfilling obligations, not a human being capable of moral choice. What I am interested in is how we can encourage and enable human speech, expression and communication. This story demonstrates a failure in this regard.
The question, then, is how to improve matters. Replacing Apple's control of the iPad with outright government control, to pick an extreme example, would likely do more harm than good. But there are other choices. One obvious response is to publicize and educate the problem, as Slashdot is doing. The government could fix the DMCA so that Apple can't use it to restrict my legitimate use of the product I own. Copyright and patent law are often used to create monopolies of distribution, to the detriment of artists and consumers: if Hollywood and the recording industry back Apple's approach, for example, we could end up with a single dominant channel of distribution. Our legislators should be concerned with this. We might also consider some kind of common carrier- or net neutrality-type regulation to ensure that channels like this are open. For example, it seems to me incredibly unreasonable that Apple gets the DMCA on side and is then able to behave like this. The law grants rights: it should also require the fulfillment responsibilities.
The AC post above mine was asking why people were OK with it from Apple, but not from MS, and I was just illustrating the difference.
You can indeed distribute any app you want for MS phones, but if it competes with one of their favored apps, they won't simply say that releasing it is in violation of their T instead they will rapaciously put you out of business.
Here's the thing, though; there's a back door into every iPhone: the web. Apple has made it clear that they support a totally open web. They also make it easy for people to set up a home page icon for any web site. So for a cartoonist's app, there's no reason that they couldn't simply set up a one-time paywall on a mobile site for iPod users and cut Apple completely out of the loop.
This is really a tempest in a teapot.
The CB App. What's your 20?
They don't have a monopoly over what gets sold on the iTunes store? They don't have a monopoly over iPads? iPhones?
By that vein, then Best Buy has a monopoly over what gets sold in Best Buy. And Microsoft has a monopoly over the Xbox.
Whether or not you agree with Fiore's political sentiments, I believe we can all agree that the censorship of his work should be denigrated.
No, Apple denigrated themselves long ago, and Steve's fans continuously denigrate themselves by supporting his behavior with their wallet.
We saw this coming from miles away when we first learned Apple would be policing what people run with their phone, why are people surprised now? A megalomaniac does fascist things with his company? I am shocked!
But... the future refused to change.
Does your hypothetical iPad have a web browser? Can it visit www.markfiore.com? Could he post an iPad-compatible version of his cartoons there? Then why do you need an app for that?
That's what really bugs me about all these smart phones and tablet computers advertising how many apps they have. We used to call most of those things "web pages". But now that they are "apps", we can't use them on our general purpose computers.
MSNBC have money. Apple like money.
I predicted the corporate dominance over the Apple App store some time ago (2008, when the Iphone was released in Australia), small developers are being pushed out in favour of larger developers which deliver Apple more profit and are easier to control. From my perspective the App store was designed for this from the word go.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The problem is the chilling effect when few organizations control many media channels.
You lose when thousands of people self-censor, because otherwise they'd be unable to reach the iPhone market. You lose when you have no chance of reaching the iPhone market. This is not an all-or-nothing winning or losing, but a graded one. But communication and expression is not isolated: it occurs in the context of networks of people and platforms. If the population of iPhone customers is big enough to affect when does and does not get made and distributed, then it affects you even if you aren't an iPhone customer.