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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
It's refusing to publish based on arbitrary criteria. But the same goes for all publishers. He's unlikely to be published in a cat magazine either because his work isn't about cats. That's not censorship either.
The App store doesn't do satire. That's all.
I honestly cannot understand how apple's monopolistic behavior hasn't attracted the same attention that Microsoft's did
Make an android app instead.
I wrote an app called Sort, which is a simple sorting "game" with various topics (sort the letters of various alphabets, sort states alphabetically, sort President years, etc).
We had one topic called "Madoff Victims" where you were to sort the 10 highest losers of money due to Bernie Madoff's schemes, in order of loss.
I don't remember the exact wording, but Apple rejected our app because they didn't like us implying bad things about him, even though exploits are well known. We removed that topic and the app was accepted.
Just Wal-Mart deciding it isn't going to carry porn in its DVD collection. Nobody's freedom of speech is being violated here.
...not to get an iPhone.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
...some kind of tipping point for corporate bullshit? A point when the most zealous of fanboys (or fangirls) realises that their beloved corporate overlords are just too evil, stupid or evil and stupid to be allowed anyone's money anymore? I live in hope.
But this isn't censorship because Apple is not obligated to publish his app anymore than the SFGate is not obligated to publish every cartoonist in existence in their paper.
... 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.
How would they get sued? If someone were to sue them then they'd have to sue the papers and everywhere else this man's cartoons appear. That would be a daunting task.
I just see Apple being a bit too control freaky here.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
...that this decision gets reversed before very long. Wouldn't be the first time something like that happened with Apple.
This ain't rocket surgery.
The App store has a MSNBC app for political cartoons. How is that any different?
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
"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)
But this isn't censorship because Apple is not obligated to publish his app
It is censorship, it's just ordinary censorship. Like how you can't say in fuck in school. Why the fuck not? It doesn't hurt anybody: Fuck fuckety fuck fuckfuck. ...
"Eric!"
Sorry, I launched in a south park quote there, anyway, my point was that as I am now voluntarily censoring myself from quoting the rest of that Cartman diatribe, there are many common forms of censorship that happen in life, and Apple censoring stuff that might get them sued is unfortunate but tolerable.
You can't take the sky from me...
Agent Smith: But, as you well know, appearances [like a nice UI] can be deceiving, which brings me back to the reason why we're here [on the iPhone]. We're not here because we're free. We're here because we are not free.
... from their "1984 ad" that announced the Macintosh.
They've gone from releasing the system advertised as "challenging Big Brother" to becoming very much like Big Brother's Thought Police...
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Why should they allow you to install any app you want?
Apple fanboys will do what Apple says, regardless of what anyone thinks. And those of us who aren't in Apple's lap really aren't affect by this. So long story short - who cares? Apple is performing the sacred duty of separating fools from their money.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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."
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?"
Apple, being the owner of the platform and operating within a capitalist economy, is absolutely free to act as it does. Moreover, timothy, in publising this write-up and in adding the "censorship" or "yro" tag, you are totally wrong. This is no censorship, this has nothing to do with Your Rights Online. This is simply a corollary of capitalism, like it or not. Live with it.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Apple has a 99.4% marketshare in smartphone applications. Sounds like a monopoly to me.
For those Apple fans out there who wonder why we hate the idea of Apple becoming the de facto standard for portable computing, this is why. Apple can do what they want with their store (for example, if I owned an app store, I'd like to refuse to sell content I object to), but I would like the freedom to buy an app from someone else.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
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.
I don't think it matters to 99.999% of people
Here's why:
They buy an iPhone or an iPod Touch or an iPad for what they can see it can do.
The do NOT buy it for what they can see it *might* be able to do.
Only engineers and visionaries will buy something for the second reason. Consider that most cars which run on hydrogen are conversions of ordinary petroleum vehicles which were bought specifically to make them do something that they ordinarily would not have been able to do. Someone converting a Ford Escort to run on Hydrogen, though, is highly unlikely to encourage someone to buy a Ford Escort in the hope that conversion kits will be available "at some point in the future". It's even more likely that someone bought a Ford Escort 4 years before the first person converting it to run on Hydrogen in order to have one on hand when conversions kits became available on the off chance that someone would think of converting one to do that four years in the future.
Likewise, the person buying the iPad is not going to do so on the basis of anticipating some killer app that hasn't been thought of by the person who will eventually implement it only have their idea rejected by the app store. We're never going to see a lot of people who fall into the category of: "Oh crap! I bought this thing 4 years ago because I knew someday someone would write this program, and now they have, but I have no way to buy it!".
Yeah, it may piss you off on general principles, but all you're ding is trying to get everyone else to adopt your general principles by compplaining, you're not the white knight errant saving the world from censorship, so get over it.
-- Terry
If a book publisher doesn't publish your book, you can always try another publisher.
You can always try another platform. Apple doesn't owe anyone a place in their store.
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.
how does this work if a newspaper has an app for the ipad? Do they have to censor the politcal cartoons?
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.
Your points are all very valid. People must be allowed to choose to be retarded if they wish it.
But it's still retarded, and worth making noise about. That's how the opposite choice is made clear. We're just coloring the two jars you can throw your chit into.
-Because, with the amount of media support Job's is getting, (essentially billions in free advertising), complaining and guffawing now is probably what will make the difference between a world where Apple exercises far too much power over the internet and one where Apple remains just a big patch of retarded I can still circumvent with a minimum fuss.
Apple is the new AOL.
-FL
While there are going to be exceptions, (ie, geeks excited about trying new technological solutions), most iPad/Pod/Phone users I've met typify AOL customers of old.
With one significant added dimension. . .
There's a weird Christian-ness about them which is hard to put my finger on. Clean-shaven, pleasant-but-fake facade which feels cultish. They make my stomach squelch nervously when I'm around one of them. -Which either means I'm the anti-Christ, or something deep in my DNA is reacting with fight/flight chemistry to the smiling pod people.
-FL
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.