Slashdot Mirror
German Publishers Want Censorship Talks With Apple
An anonymous reader writes "The association of German magazine publishers has sent a letter to Steve Jobs (Google translation; German original here) demanding talks about censorship by Apple. The move draws attention to growing concerns about freedom of the press when a single unelected commercial entity has worldwide control over what gets published for the iPhone and, especially, the iPad." While the magazine publishers may rightly be concerned about private control of a platform that many of them are counting on for their long-term salvation, the German state is at the very least ambivalent about the subject of censorship. This is the country that has banned Wikileaks, sought a ban on violent games, and voted to censor child porn (only to have the president kill the ban as unconstituitonal).
The iPad is a *new* device, and anything published on it is available there in addition to all the other devices and media through which publication was previously possible. How could this be a censorship issue worthy of government attention?
Is it censorship? In the broadest sense, yes. But do I want the federal gov't meddling with this? Any federal gov't? It sets a scary precedent.
The CB App. What's your 20?
We just don't think of nudity as porn.
"A single unelected commercial entity has worldwide control over what gets published for" the PS3.
"A single unelected commercial entity has worldwide control over what gets published for" the Wii.
Are they pushing Apple to do the same as Sony and Nintendo, or are they pushing for special privileges?
What's stopping them from simply publishing their content as web pages?
Why would they want special applications?
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
Some of us Americans don't either... though we seemed to be in a minority.
Not the German state.
Get it now?
i.e. They want a slice.
Deleted
That's nonsense. Why doesn't anyone have an issue with Microsoft's "lockin" for XBox games? They require the same approval process to get the XBox logo on your game box. They've consistently blocked third party installation of software. Or Nintendo? Nintendo has gone so far as to sue every game publisher that tried to sidestep their approval process... on the NES back in the early 90's. That was almost 20 years ago! Every game for every Nintendo console has to be approved. Or Sony? The PSP had a browser and no flash, and software updates consistently blocked installation of unapproved software.
Nothing Apple is doing hasn't been done by the game console manufacturers for at least a decade, and mobile phone companies too. You can't install software on my Verizon Env phone without going through their "Get it Now" store, which also requires approval, and this phone was released 2 years before the iPhone existed.
I don't understand the focus on Apple and the iPhone/iPad or why this is suddenly an issue now. Is everyone blind about this being normal business practice for the entire industry?
Germans usually tolerate porn and other adult content more than in the US.
True. For instance, I wonder why nobody complains about the beeps that replace all four-letter words (except "Lord") on American TV. (You are aware that the people aren't actually saying "beep", right?) I'd call that censorship. I can live with people saying "fuck" on TV every once in a while.
On the other hand, I find it hard to live with the knowledge that kids are being abused in order to produce child porn. And I wouldn't (necessarily) call the attempt to dry out the child porn market censorship. I mean, seriously, does it impede your right to free speech if you are not allowed to produce and circulate child porn?
Say out loud: I'm an Aspie and I'm somewhat proud, I guess. Uh. Can I write an email in all caps instead? Hm...
>> sought a ban on violent games >Good thing the word sought is there. The conservative hardliners have been talking about it for 20 years now and so far not much has happened. > Preemptive censorship by the publishers is far worse. let me guess why? I am pretty fucking sick of "available in the EU except Germany", "worldwide (except Germany)", etc. on steam, impulse, etc. This happens for games with different themes like Star Wars: Battlefront, Company of Heroes (which as far as I can remember, doesn't have any swastikas in it)... well, maybe these "preemptive censorship" is due to the fact that the put a "ban" (no commercials etc. allowed) on Dark Forces and several other titles ages ago? The content-delivery services seem to be very cautious about what you can buy from German soil...
Its not just kdawson. Which country tried to destroy WikiLeaks?
I'm well aware of apple's TOS restrictions...but I'll ignore them anyway. And if I ever get taken to court, I have faith in the judiciary at some level upholding my right to do what I want with my device as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else.
The law is not "stopped", it is still in full effect. The government only gave order to the police not to make any blocking lists. According to the law, the telecommunication providers could still be fined if they don't install the blocking infrastructure. And in addition, the government could still say any day, that the police may start blocking offending pages (Unlikely that they would, though, especially now that most people have understood that finding and taking down the servers of child pornography is possible and better than simply DNS blocking them)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No, it is not, and I do wish propertarians would cease this abuse of language. To censor is "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable...; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable". It does not matter whether it is the government or a private agency doing the suppression, it is still censorship.
It may be the case that government censorship is more intrusive and threatening to liberty than private censorship, but that does not change the fact that both are members of the same species.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood