Apple reaffirms its promise to protect us from Porn (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Ted Todorov

I see your point, but due the presence of Safari, Mail, etc. the iPhone OS devices do not turn back the clock to the days of your childhood. Do you think that any significant number of parents will refuse to buy their kids an Android device but agree to buy them an iPhone OS device as it is "safer"?

That's exactly my point: the technological world has changed quickly and substantially. The rules and guidelines are everything from the past 30+ years and even more. So what are the tools and options parents and kids have today? And what might they have tomorrow?


As both Mac and Windows have parental controls at the OS level, someone thinks that parents want and use some control over their kids computer usage. It's reasonable to speculate about such tools in the new generation of computers.


As an '80s kid, with a computer and a bit of modem access, it was nothing like today. BBS access was rare and very limited. And I never saw online porn. Rather, there was as Eric_L suggested, printed materials from friends' older brothers. But nothing via computers in my little slice of the world.

 

[Sam Posten]

Originally Posted by Ted Todorov


And, IMO you are remembering through rose colored glasses -- there have been modems for as long as there were PCs. There were BBSes one could dial into, Usenet came into existence in the early '80s.


Yes, I guess you had to be a tech savvy kid to get to the "good stuff", but my guess is any kid with a computer in the late 70's ~ 80's was a tech savvy kid.

Amen. And all the technical troubles made finding the good stuff all the more sweet. Even in 1983ish (I'd have been 13) with 2400 baud modems and 16 color graphics. Even an image or two over fidonet was a major score. Ah Fidonet and Doors, we miss you! =)


If any of you think kids today won't make mincemeat of whatever roadblocks are put in front of them you haven't been paying attention.

 

[Ken Chan]

Originally Posted by Sam Posten

Apple has tried to be coy about setting an end post because, well the game is afoot then to constantly try to push the limits. By not setting consistent rules its maddening to both customers and devs / content producers.

It may be maddening and arbitrary, but there is no practical way to set down "letter of the law" rules that would actually work. You'd have people trying to game those rules, then Apple trying to extend and clarify those rules. That's how you end up with stuff like our tax code.


It's better overall to say, "We don't allow X, and we decide what qualifies as X." Even when they decide against you, at least there is some higher authority to appeal to, and decisions can occasionally be reversed.

 

[DaveF]

There is no higher authority.


There's "the rejected author won a Pulitzer and gets so much media attention that Steve Jobs must personally weigh in to stem the bad publicity".


But for Dave Developer, there is no higher authority. Unless you consider "resubmit and hope for a different reviewer in a better mood" a higher authority.

 

[Ken Chan]

No, that's exactly what I meant: Steve or one of his minions. I didn't say there were many levels, or that it was easy to get their attention.


What's the alternative? Some very meticulously detailed specification that tries to cover every possible permutation? What happens when those detailed rules create some wacky unforeseen outcome that, by broad consensus, makes no sense? Throw up your hands and say, "Well, rules are rules?" Or do you appeal to the same higher authority to change the rules; in which case why waste all that time creating detailed rules in the first place?

 

[DaveF]

Your view seems nihilistic. Perfect rules are impossible, so don't have any rules at all. But it seems the rules could be made more explicit and more consistent. This has described by others numerous times elsewhere.


And the efforts to get an improved review are not by any sense "appealing to a higher authority". It's hoping to randomly get a different reviewer, which probably won't happen. So, secondly, Apple could implement an appeals process.

 

[Ken Chan]

Perfect rules that are explicit enough so that developers know "in advance" what will be approved are impossible.


Whatever rules they do have should be applied more consistently. Edge cases should be decided looking both backward to precedent and forward to future apps that might attempt variations.


A formal appeals process might help, as long as you can figure out some criteria so that you don't just get everyone requesting an appeal. Maybe all rejections can be reviewed automatically, and any "non-blatant" violations can be assigned to two other reviewers for a majority report.

 

[Sam Posten]

Awesomesauce!

http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/08/ipad-porn-art/

 

[mattCR]

[SIZE= 12px]Meanwhile, James Joyce[/SIZE][SIZE= 12px] Ulysses got the boot as the book was kicked out of the store for content...[/SIZE]


http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/tablet-pcs/278896/apple-censors-james-joyces-ulysses-on-the-ipad

 

[mattCR]

The book publishing industry takes a swipe at Apple over the censorship issue: http://industry.bnet.com/media/10008534/a-publishing-tradition-apple-censors-joyces-ulysses-a-century-after-the-us-did-the-same/

It is both funny and disturbing. As Weinman points out, the irony of threatening to ban and eventually censor a book a century later is pretty hilarious. What is troublesome, however, is that the Ulysses Seen webcomic can’t be smuggled onto the iPad, a la the transcontinental move Random House made to bring the original classic to American shores. Instead, the now several million Apple iPad users must be content with the censored version of the project. Worse, adult verification is already built into the Apple Store system, so it’s not a matter of there not being safeguards in place.

Macworld talks to the authors, who apparently offered Apple that they were willing to put fig leaves or pixelate areas that might be nudity, and were still told no. http://www.macworld.com/article/151821/2010/06/ulysses_webcomic.html?lsrc=rss_weblogs_iphonecentral

 

[Ted Todorov]

Meanwhile iBooks sells stuff like nude photo laden groupie memoir "The Last Living Slut" which likely features prose bluer than Joyce.

Of course it comes from Harper Collins -- I guess the moral is you need something like a major publisher or a pulitzer.

Come on Apple -- get out of the content screening business -- it is a no-win situation. Yes, by all means keep Flash out, save us from broken and virus-y apps. But leave censoring books to rot in the grave with Anthony Comstock's body.

 

[mattCR]

I think the biggest problem they have is that if you're a big publisher you seemingly get away with it.. if not, your stuff gets rejected. That just looks bad.

 

[Edwin-S]

Originally Posted by Ted Todorov


Of course it comes from Harper Collins -- I guess the moral is you need something like a major publisher or a pulitzer.

That's no guarantee. Mark Fiore, a Pulitzer prize winning editorial cartoonist, had his political satire app rejected by Apple, because it violated an Apple rule regarding "ridicule of public figures". Outside of the porn issue, this type of censorship is one more reason not to buy Steve Jobs's crippled, overpriced electronic landfill. I mean, that depiction of a penis in the Ulysses adaptation.....that's the apocalypse right there.....any kid sees that and the world will immediately end in fire and destruction. Mr. Jobs, thank you for your never ending ceaseless vigil in preventing the distribution of civilization destroying events such as doodled penises.

 

[mattCR]

Originally Posted by Edwin-S





That's no guarantee. Mark Fiore, a Pulitzer prize winning editorial cartoonist, had his political satire app rejected by Apple, because it violated an Apple rule regarding "ridicule of public figures". Outside of the porn issue, this type of censorship is one more reason not to buy Steve Jobs's crippled, overpriced electronic landfill. I mean, that depiction of a penis in the Ulysses adaptation.....that's the apocalypse right there.....any kid sees that and the world will immediately end in fire and destruction. Mr. Jobs, thank you for your never ending ceaseless vigil in preventing the distribution of civilization destroying events such as doodled penises.

Sure, but come on, they are pretty lenient, I mean, without checking your age or making you check (at least at my test 10 minutes ago) you can buy or listen to 2 Live Crew (available @ Itunes right now).

But we all know 2 Live Crew has more musical merit then any Pulitzer or award winner. By far.

 

[Sam Posten]

But every app update that might contain 17+ material requires a purchaser approval. It's annoying.

 

[Ted Todorov]

Edwin, Mark Fiore is exactly what my Pulitzer reference applied to -- as you should know his app was swiftly un-rejected.

As has now been Ulysees ("we made a mistake" says Apple) along with an Importance of Being Earnest graphic novel where some boy/boy action was originally verboten.

I repeat -- get out of the content screening business Apple! You will keep getting egg on your face over and over and over. It is stooooooopid.


What you need to do is this: come up with iMagazine and iComic/Graphic Novel (or adapt iBooks accordingly) and then simply accept anything that comes from ANY publisher big or small. If someone starts bitching about content being approved just point to the publisher in question and say they "printed" it and/or point to the exact same item on sale at Amazon and tell the complainer to go picket in Seattle.

If people keep submitting book/comic/ etc. apps, point them to the new policy of all content going through iBooks/iMagazine/iComic/Graphic Novel as appropriate or any third party store/app (Kindle, B&N, bunch of comic apps, etc, etc)


Result: an end to serial embarrassment and time waste for Apple employees, everyone is happy, Apps still tightly controlled to keep out flash, viruses and other junk.