Parler Speedruns The Content Moderation Learning Curve; Goes From 'We Allow Everything' To 'We're The Good Censors' In Days

from the nice-one-guys dept

Over the last few weeks Parler has become the talk of Trumpist land, with promises of a social media site that "supports free speech." The front page of the site insists that its content moderation is based on the standards of the FCC and the Supreme Court of the United States:

Of course, that's nonsensical. The FCC's regulations on speech do not apply to the internet, but just to broadcast television and radio over public spectrum. And, of course, the Supreme Court's well-established parameters for 1st Amendment protected speech have been laid out pretty directly over the last century or so, but the way this is written they make it sound like any content to be moderated on Parler will first be reviewed by the Supreme Court, and that's not how any of this works. Indeed, under Supreme Court precedent, very little speech is outside of the 1st Amendment these days, and we pointed out that Parler's terms of service did not reflect much understanding of the nuances of Supreme Court jurisprudence on the 1st Amendment. Rather, it appeared to demonstrate the level of knowledge of a 20-something tech bro skimming a Wikipedia article about exceptions to the 1st Amendment and just grabbing the section headings without bothering to read the details (or talk to a 1st Amendment lawyer).

Besides, as we pointed out, Parler's terms of service allow them to ban users or content for any reason whatsoever -- suggesting they didn't have much conviction behind their "we only moderate based on the FCC and the Supreme Court." Elsewhere, Parler's CEO says that "if you can say it on the street of New York, you can say it on Parler." Or this nugget of nonsense:

“They can make any claim they’d like, but they’re going to be met with a lot of commenters, a lot of people who are going to disagree with them,” Matze said. “That’s how society works, right? If you make a claim, people are going to come and fact check you organically.”

“You don’t need an editorial board of experts to determine what’s true and what’s not,” he added. “The First Amendment was given to us so that we could all talk about issues, not have a single point of authority to determine what is correct and what’s not.”

Ah.

So, anyway, on Monday, we noted that Parler was actually banning a ton of users for a wide variety of reasons -- most of which could be labeled simply as "trolling Parler." People were going on to Parler to see what it would take to get themselves banned. This is trolling. And Parler banned a bunch of them. That resulted in Parler's CEO, John Matze, putting out a statement about other things that are banned on Parler:

If you can't read that, here's what he says, with some annotations:

To the people complaining on Twitter about being banned on Parler. Please pay heed:

Literally no one is "complaining" about being banned on Parler. They're mocking Parler for not living up to it's pretend goals of only banning you for speech outside of 1st Amendment protections.

Here are the very few basic rules we need you to follow on Parler. If these are not to your liking, we apologize, but we will enforce:

Good for you. It's important to recognize -- just as we said -- that any website that hosts 3rd party content will eventually have to come up with some plan to enforce some level of content moderation. You claimed you wouldn't do that. Indeed, just days earlier you had said that people could "make any claim they'd like" and also that you were going to follow the Supreme Court's limits on the 1st Amendment, not your own content moderation rules.

When you disagree with someone, posting pictures of your fecal matter in the comment section WILL NOT BE TOLERATED

So, a couple thoughts on this. First of all, I get that Matze is trying to be funny here, but this is not that. All it really does is suggest that he's been owned by a bunch of trolls posting shit pics. Also, um, contractually, this seems to mean it's okay to post pictures of other people's fecal matter. Might want to have a lawyer review this shit, John.

Also, more importantly, I've spent a few hours digging through Supreme Court precedents regarding the 1st Amendment and I've failed to find the ruling that says that posting a picture of your shit violates the 1st Amendment. I mean, I get that it's not nice. But, I was assured by Parler that it was ruled by Supreme Court precedent.

Your Username cannot be obscene like "CumDumpster"

Again, my litany of legal scholars failed to turn up the Supreme Court precedent on this.

No pornography. Doesn't matter who, what, where, when, or in what realm.

Thing is, most pornography is very much protected under the 1st Amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court of the United States. So again, we see that Parler's rules are not as initially stated.

We will not allow you to spam other people trying to speak, with unrelated comments like "Fuck you" in every comment. It's stupid. It's pointless, Grow up.

I agree that it's stupid and that people should grow up, but this is the kind of thing that every other internet platform either recognizes from the beginning or learns really quickly: you're going to have some immature trolls show up and you need to figure out how you want to deal with them. But those spammers' and trolls' speech is, again (I feel like I'm repeating myself) very much protected by the 1st Amendment.

You cannot threaten to kill anyone in the comment section. Sorry, never ever going to be okay.

Again, this is very context dependent, and, despite Matze saying that he won't employ any of those annoying "experts" to determine what is and what is not allowed, figuring out what is a "true threat" under the Supreme Court's precedent usually requires at least some experts who understand how true threats actually work.

But, honestly, this whole thing is reminiscent of any other website that hosts 3rd party content learning about content moderation. It's just that in Parler's case, because it called attention to the claims that it would not moderate, it's having to go through the learning curve in record time. Remember, in the early days, Twitter called itself "the free speech wing of the free speech party." And then it started filling with spam, abuse, and harassment. And terrorists. And things got tricky. Or, Facebook. As its first content policy person, Dave Willner, said at a conference a few years ago, Facebook's original content moderation policy was "does it make us feel icky?" And if it did, it got taken down. But that doesn't work.

And, of course, as these platforms became bigger and more powerful, the challenges became thornier and more and more complicated. A few years ago, Breitbart went on an extended rampage because Google had created an internal document struggling over the biggest issues in content moderation, in which it included a line about "the good censor". For months afterwards, all of the Trumpist/Breitbart crew was screaming about "the good censor" and how tech believed its job was to censor conservatives (which is not what the document actually said). It was just an analysis of all the varied challenges in content moderation, and how to set up policies that are fair and reasonable.

Parler seems to be going through this growth process in the course of about a week. First it was "hey free speech for everyone." Then they suddenly start realizing that that doesn't actually work -- especially when people start trolling you. So, they start ad libbing. Right now, Parler's policy seems more akin to Facebook's "does it make us feel icky" standard, though tuned more towards its current base: so "does upset the Trumpists who are now celebrating the platform." That's a policy. It's not "we only moderate based on the 1st Amendment." And it's not "free speech supportive." It's also not scaleable.

So people get banned and perhaps for good reason. Here's the single message that got Ed Bott banned:

I don't see how that violates any of the so far stated rules of Parler, but it's violating one of the many unwritten rules: Parler doesn't like it if you make fun of Parler. Which is that company's choice of course. I will note, just in passing, that that is significantly more restrictive than Twitter, which has tons of people mocking Twitter every damn day, and I've yet to hear of a single case of anyone being banned from Twitter for mocking Twitter. Honestly, if you were to compare the two sites, one could make a very strong case that Twitter is way more willing to host speech than Parler is considering its current policies.

Should Parler ever actually grow bigger, it might follow the path of every other social media platform out there and institute more thorough rules, policies, and procedures regarding content moderation. But, of course, that makes it just like every other social media platform out there, though it might draw the lines differently. And, as I've said through all these posts (contrary to the attacks that have been launched at me the last few days), I'm very happy that Parler exists. I want there to be more competition to today's social media sites. I want there to be more experimentation. And I'm truly hopeful that some of them succeed. That's how innovation works.

I just don't like it when they're totally hypocritical. Indeed, it seems that Parler's CEO Matze has now decided that rather than being supportive of the 1st Amendment, and rather than being supportive of what you can say on a NY street (say, in a protest of police brutality), anyone who supports Antifa is not allowed on Parler:

I'm not quite clear on what Parler policy (or 1st Amendment exception) "Antifa supporter" falls under, but hey, I don't make the rules.

In the meantime, it's been fun to watch Parler's small group of rabid supporters try to continue to justify the site's misleading claims. A bunch keep screaming at me the falsehood that Parler supports any 1st Amendment protected free speech. Others insist that "of course" that doesn't apply to assholes (the famed "asshole corollary" to Supreme Court 1A doctrine, I guess). But, honestly, my favorite was this former Fox News reporter who now writes for Mediaite -- who spent a couple days insisting that everyone making fun of Parler's hypocrisy were somehow "mad" at being kicked off Parler -- who decided to just straight up say that Parler is good because it does the right kind of banning. You see, Parler is the good censor:

And, thus, we're right back to "the good censor." Except that when the Google document used that phrase, it used it to discuss the impossible tradeoffs of moderation, not to embrace the role. Yet here, a Parler fan is embracing this role that is entirely opposite of the site's public statements. Somehow, I get the feeling that the Breitbart/Trumpist crew isn't going to react the same way to Parler becoming "the good censor" as it did to a Google document that just highlighted the impossible challenges of content moderation.

And, look, if Parler had come out and said that from the beginning, cool. That's a choice. No one would be pointing out any hypocrisy if they just said that they wanted to create a safe space for aggrieved Trump fans. Instead, the site is trying to have it both ways: still claiming it's supportive of 1st Amendment rules, while simultaneously ramping up its somewhat arbitrary banning process. Of course, what's hilarious is that many of its supporters keep insisting that their real complaint with Twitter is that its content moderation is "arbitrary" or "unevenly applied." The fact that the same thing is now true of Parler seems blocked from entering their brains by the great cosmic cognitive dissonance shield.

The only issue that people are pointing out is that Parler shouldn't have been so cavalier in hanging its entire identity on "we don't moderate, except as required by law." And hopefully it's a lesson to other platforms as well. Content moderation happens. You can't avoid it. Pretending that you can brush it off with vague platitudes about free speech doesn't work. And it's better to understand that from the beginning rather than look as foolish as Parler just as everyone's attention turns your way.

Filed Under: arbitrary, content moderation, content moderation at scale, john matze, rules, terms, the good censor
Companies: parler

PayPal Kills Canadian Paper's Submission To Media Awards Because Article Had Word 'Syrian' In The Title

from the EXPORTING-OUR-STUPIDITY dept

PayPal is ubiquitous. And that's unfortunate. Over the years, the payment platform has earned a reputation for acting in a way that can charitably be described as "hellishly inconsistent." For little to no reason, users have found their accounts shut down or suspended. And, thanks to US laws meant to prevent the PayPal-ing of material support to foreign terrorists, PayPal has been suspending accounts for innocuous payments containing certain trigger words in the descriptions.

The latest victim of PayPal's inscrutable policies and unapproachable customer service is a small Canadian newspaper. As the CBC reports, the small paper's attempt to enter a few of its stories for consideration for national newspaper awards resulted in the bricking of both the sender's and the receiver's accounts.

A community newspaper's payment to enter a feel-good story about a family of Syrian refugees in an awards competition prompted PayPal to freeze the account of a national media organization after flagging the suspicious transaction, The Canadian Press has learned.

[...]

The weekly Flin Flon Reminder entered the article — titled "Syrian family adapts to new life" — last month as part of its submissions to the annual Canadian Community Newspaper Awards. The feature story from July 2016 outlines the challenges and triumphs as the family settled in the Manitoban town of 5,100 and the community's willingness to make them feel welcome.

The word "Syrian" set off PayPal's auto-monitor, which blocked the Flin Flon Reminder's $240 in entry fees. (To be considered for the awards, submitters must pay $60 per article submitted -- and it would appear Flin Flon submitted four of them.)

It would be one thing if the payment was flagged and then reviewed. But nothing in the story suggests PayPal took a second look at this until a larger media outfit -- the CBC -- started asking questions.

PayPal didn't limit itself to killing the sender's account. It suspended the receiver's account as well.

This week, Durnin called News Media Canada — formerly Newspaper Canada — to find out what had happened. They realized PayPal had frozen the News Media Canada account, said Nicole Bunt, who processes the awards entries.

PayPal supposedly reviews flagged payments within 72 hours. No one involved heard anything from PayPal until after the CBC's inquiries. The belated response from PayPal: "Um... US law mumble mumble mumble."

"You may be buying or selling goods or services that are regulated or prohibited by the U.S. government," PayPal said in an email to News Media Canada.

Oh, really? This is some spectacular review work by PayPal, considering both the sender and the receiver are located entirely in Canada. While US law may govern US transactions processed by the company, they should have little to no effect on completely extraterritorial transactions.

And the sole reason for PayPal's dual account nuking? The word "Syrian" being in the submission to the newspaper awards.

The note also requested a "complete and detailed explanation of the transaction" and the purpose of the payment, which identified with the story's headline.

That's the problem with keyword flagging. All it's ever going to do is produce false positives and inconvenience hundreds of non-terrorists. The algorithms deployed by PayPal are looking for terms no terrorist is going to use when transferring funds to allies. It works on the stupidest of assumptions: that memo lines are going to filled with suspicious keywords when actual nefarious transactions are taking place.

If you're going to build a US law-compliant service that relies on tragically flawed logic, the least you can do is actually review flagged transactions in a timely manner and provide actual people customers can talk to, to sort out these issues.

Instead, PayPal appears to have left this payment-vetting process to the machines and made it all but impossible to speak to someone who might be able to derive something from context. And it makes it worse by subjecting other countries to US law, whether or not the flagged transaction violates laws in the country where the funds are changing hands.

Then there's this kicker at the end of the CBC article.

PayPal did not immediately explain its process.

Yeah. Or EVER. That's the other problem. Go ahead and CYA by flagging keywords and keeping your Terms of Use vaguely-written and open to often-baffling interpretations. But do your customers a favor and at least answer questions about the specifics of their flagged transactions. At the very least, it would show some human has eyes on the process. If you can't be proactive, at least be usefully reactive.

Filed Under: arbitrary, canada, newspapers, payements, syria
Companies: flin flon reminder, news media canada, paypal

Facebook's Arbitrary Offensiveness Police Take Down Informational Video About Breast Cancer Screening

from the bunch-of-boobs dept

Stories of Facebook's attempt at puritanical patrols of its site are legion at this point. The site has demonstrated it cannot filter out parody, artwork, simple speech in the form of outrage, iconic historical photos, or sculpture from its prude-patrol censorship. As a private company, Facebook is of course allowed to follow its own whim when it comes to what is allowed on its site, but as an important tool in this era for communication and speech, the company is also a legitimate target for derision when it FUBARs this as badly as it does so often.

So queue up the face-palming once more, as Facebook has decided to remove a video posted by a Swedish cancer charity informing women how to check for breast cancer, because the video included animated breasts, and breasts are icky icky.

Facebook has removed a video on breast cancer awareness posted in Sweden after deeming the images offensive, the Swedish Cancer Society said on Thursday. The video, displaying animated figures of women with circle-shaped breasts, was aimed at explaining to women how to check for suspicious lumps. Sweden’s Cancerfonden said it had tried in vain to contact Facebook, and had decided to appeal against the decision to remove the video.

Based on images on Cancerfonden's site, the tantalizing breasts in question were of the variety of stick figures. Not exactly tantalizing in its imagery, the video content was instead supposed to educate women on the proper method for detecting lumps that could be cancerous. Save for perhaps some minor percentage of humankind, these are the types of images that don't conjure a sexual connotation. And yet Facebook took them down.

To the social media giant's credit, it eventually put the video back up on its site and apologized.

In a statement to the BBC, a spokeswoman for Facebook said the images of the Swedish campaign had now been approved.

"We're very sorry, our team processes millions of advertising images each week, and in some instances we incorrectly prohibit ads," she said. "This image does not violate our ad policies. We apologise for the error and have let the advertiser know we are approving their ads."

Which, you know, fine, but exactly how many of these types of stories must be endured before Facebook acknowledges that there is a problem with its filtering and censorship process? I don't think the exclusion of oversight is the answer, but I would hope that we could agree that if the takedown filters continue to catch bronze statues and breast cancer videos in its net, perhaps some recalibration is needed.

Filed Under: arbitrary, breast cancer, breasts, social media, takedowns
Companies: facebook

Twitter Suspends YouTube Phenom PewDiePie For Making A Stupid ISIS Joke

from the giant-circle-of-stupidity dept

Most of the time, you can say pretty much whatever you'd like on Twitter without the company actually bothering to enforce its harassment and online abuse policies. Think it's funny to threaten to rape somebody? Twitter this week informed Medium software engineer Kelly Ellis this was perfectly ok. Want to hurl racist threats like a lobotomized halfwit? Cool! Is flinging anti-semitic insults more your cup of tea? No problem! Over the last year, you'd be hard pressed to find somebody not talking about how inconsistent and arbitrary Twitter's ban hammer is.

Swedish YouTube phenom PewDiePie found this out the hard way this week after his account -- followed by 47 million Twitter users -- suddenly up and disappeared briefly from the social networking service without explanation:Well, not entirely. According to one of his videos he unverified his own account to protest the admitted pointlessness of the verified process, which itself is often arbitrary.But before that video explanation was posted, a parody Sky News account (unverified, for whatever it's worth) proclaimed that the Youtube star had been unverified because he joined ISIS:That in turn resulted in the "star" making the joke that he'd joined the violent extremist group (has this gotten stupid yet or is it just me?):All told, it's believed this Tweet, possibly combined with the parody reference, somehow triggered the suspension at Twitter, which speaks volumes about Twitter's threshold for suspension as it tries to crack down on ISIS' influence on social media. Last month Twitter proclaimed it had shut down 360,000 Twitter accounts for being tied to terrorism, but this latest flub again raises questions about whether the company actually has a solid handle on what it's doing.

Twitter refuses to comment on this or any of its other seemingly-drunk enforcement behaviors, but the company's inconsistency on this front has been on proud display for some time, and the message being sent is anything but clear. Something about how it's ok to threaten to rape and kill women and people of color, but don't joke about ISIS, and whatever you do -- don't post animated gifs of the Olympics:If Twitter doesn't want to begin rivaling some of the great arbitrary shitshows of our age (like oh, Apple's app store approval process) the company needs to get ahead of the problem quickly. Sources told Bloomberg last week that the company was consulting with "an outside council of anti-harassment groups" as it experiments with keyword filters the company hopes gives users more control of violent vitriol aimed in their direction. It also hopes to offer an announcement on improvements to its harassment policy and enforcement.

In the interim, to be safe, you may just want to avoid humor entirely.

Filed Under: abuse, arbitrary, jokes, pewdiepie, suspensions, terrorism
Companies: twitter

Apple Punishes iFixit For Doing A Tear Down On Apple TV

from the really-now? dept

The past two Techdirt podcasts had special guest Kyle Wiens, the CEO of iFixit, discussing both the DMCA's anti-circumvention review process and the more general importance of the freedom to tinker. In those podcasts, Wiens talked a bit about some companies being more willing than others to support iFixit's efforts to help people repair or modify products they had purchased.

Apple, apparently, is not a fan.

The company, which is famous for its somewhat arbitrary decisions to reject certain apps from appearing in its iTunes store, has now pulled iFixit's app entirely. Though, this time it's not necessarily for "arbitrary" reasons, but because Apple is pissed that iFixit took the Apple TV device that Apple sent the company, and did a teardown on it.

Of course, that makes you wonder what the hell Apple expected iFixit to do, since teardowns are kind of its thing.

Not too long ago, we tore down the Apple TV and Siri Remote. The developer unit we disassembled was sent to us by Apple. Evidently, they didn’t intend for us to take it apart. But we’re a teardown and repair company; teardowns are in our DNA—and nothing makes us happier than figuring out what makes these gadgets tick. We weighed the risks, blithely tossed those risks over our shoulder, and tore down the Apple TV anyway.

A few days later, we got an email from Apple informing us that we violated their terms and conditions—and the offending developer account had been banned. Unfortunately, iFixit’s app was tied to that same account, so Apple pulled the app as well. Their justification was that we had taken “actions that may hinder the performance or intended use of the App Store, B2B Program, or the Program.”

Live and learn.

iFixit notes that it's not too concerned about this. Its Android app still works, and it's been improving its mobile site so you don't really need an app in the first place. And also, iFixit offers open APIs that would allow others to make their own apps that use iFixit data (though whether or not Apple would approve such an app is another question).

But, still, in this age where so much of what we buy is computerized and a complete black box, one of the key points of last week's podcast was the importance of learning what's really inside these boxes. Given that Apple's earliest roots come from Steve Wozniak hacking around devices and building something better, it seems like a real shame that Apple is not only not supporting such activities with its own equipment, but it's actively punishing those who do so.

Filed Under: apple tv, apps store, arbitrary, freedom to tinker, itunes store, kyle wiens, siri remote, teardown
Companies: apple, ifixit

Apple Bans Non-Graphic, VR Representation Of Ferguson Shooting For No Coherent Reason

from the would-you-please-make-some-sense dept

Apple's ridiculous, inconsistent and incoherent app store approval process is now a thing of legend. The company has long banned apps simply for being able to access other, vaguely-controversial content, whether that's a dictionary (because some words are naughty), or comic book and e-book readers (because, occasional booby references). But Apple's also been known to ban apps critical of Apple products, games with Nazis in it, DUI checkpoint apps, and anything with a confederate flag in it (even if historically accurate). Basically, Apple governs its app store approval process like a puritanical child in the throes of an epic acid trip, and conversations trying to decipher company intent goes accordingly.

Apple's latest ingenious app store approval ban? Virtual reality journalism. Graphic artist Dan Archer thought it might be cool to build a 3D representation of the Ferguson shooting to help people better understand precisely what happened. Note there's no graphic content whatsoever; the app simply shows a 3D representative of the crime scene, 3D models of Michael Brown and Darren Wilson and their alleged locations, and lets the user simultaneously peruse publicly-filed evidence, witness testimony, and published radio chatter: Note that in and of itself a VR exploration of what happened isn't specifically controversial, and it's a very handy tool in trying to better understand the details of the story. Yet Archer received a phone call from Apple, explaining cryptically that his app would not be allowed on the store because its "scope was too narrow":

"According to the phone call I received, Ferguson Firsthand was disallowed because it “refers to a very specific event, and therefore its scope is too narrow.” I was encouraged to try again with an app that is “topical, but not focusing on any one single incident or topic.” Ferguson Firsthand, in its current state, would need to be “changed so significantly for it to be approved.” The representative was unable to clarify whether an app that reported on multiple, nationwide allegations of police misconduct would better fit the recommendations she had mentioned."

As with previous bans, getting Apple to transparently and more precisely illuminate the exact problem with the VR app was utterly unfruitful. In a companion piece over at Medium, Archer quite-correctly notes that the continued reliance on arbitrary, non-transparent gatekeepers is the last thing the soon-to-explode virtual reality market needs. Sure, those that can afford the $500 for the upcoming HTC Vive or Oculus Rift (not to mention a high-end graphics card) will likely be slightly less-reliant on gatekeepers for content access, but having Apple determine what qualifies as an acceptable journalism tool on less expensive smartphone VR platforms is a scary proposition:

"Leading VR headsets in the market still cost hundreds of dollars (despite becoming a decimal point or two cheaper in the last decade) and a powerful PC to run home experiences. Google cardboard, the SDK that allows journalists to port a game engine experience into VR, was designed to work brilliantly with smartphones, but in light of my phone call with Ms. Apple, almost half (44.1%, according to June 2015 data published by Comscore) of that market share in the US was effectively being cut off."

Archer also notes that Apple's decision directly contradicts its own over-arching principles for its own guidelines:

"Thank you for developing for iOS. Even though this document is a formidable list of what not to do, please also keep in mind the much shorter list of what you must do. Above all else, join us in trying to surprise and delight users. Show them their world in innovative ways, and let them interact with it like never before. In our experience, users really respond to polish, both in functionality and user interface. Go the extra mile. Give them more than they expect. And take them places where they have never been before. We are ready to help."

Or, try to do exactly that and get your project blocked for no coherent reason.

Filed Under: app store, arbitrary, ferguson, journalism, news, rejections, vr
Companies: apple

Apple's Arbitrary Review Process Now Being Used To Stop Competing Pebble Smart Watch

from the lame dept

For many years now, we've been highlighting how Apple appears to arbitrarily ban apps with little to no explanation, even though quite frequently, it appears to be because they are competitive with Apple products.

We haven't heard as much about that lately, leading to at least some hope that perhaps Apple has been opening up and allowing more apps. It's still a walled garden, which is ridiculous, but we'd hoped that the gate was relatively open. So it seems odd to find out that not only has Apple been refusing to allow Pebble's new iOS app, but it appears to be sitting on it for an extended period of time with no explanation (one version has been waiting for 43 days, another version, where "expedited review" was requested has been sitting for a few weeks).

Pebble, of course, is the maker of the first really popular smartwatch, and they're just starting to ship the second generation of that watch after a super successful Kickstarter campaign. As Pebble notes in the email that it sent around to backers, the last time it requested "expedited review" Apple approved that app in 24 hours. Of course, there's a big difference between the last time and this time: now the Apple Watch is on the market, meaning that Apple has a competitor in the marketplace, giving it incentives not to help out Pebble.

Obviously, there's no direct evidence that Apple is purposely blocking Pebble's app because it competes with the Apple Watch, but it does seem notable that the approval went through so much faster prior to Apple entering the space. And, even if that's not why Apple is blocking approval, just the fact that the company has a secretive, non-transparent, arbitrary approval process, at the very least, allows for the appearance of trying to block a competitor.

Update And... of course, just as this post is going out, it comes out that Apple has now finally approved the app, with Pebble claiming that the public pressure from it releasing its story helped push the app across the finish line.

Filed Under: app store, apple watch, arbitrary, pebble, pebble time
Companies: apple, pebble

Apple Pulls Popular Weed-Growing Game From App Store, Ignores All The Unpopular Ones

from the consistent-inconsistency dept

It should be clear by now that Apple sees most of us as the proverbial unwashed masses and is on something of a mission to immolate immoral thought patterns by trying to put everyone's head in the collective sand. That seems to be the only explanation for their app store censoring process, which has in the past removed historical context from games, the human body from consideration, comic books it deems to be immoral, and literature. All, mind you, in the name of a corporate moral code that probably wouldn't hold up under closer scrutiny.

But even if Apple wants to play the morality card, it presents the problem of consistency. Moral stances, after all, don't allow for picking and choosing due to outside factors. Yet that appears to be exactly what is occurring with the latest app store nixing of a popular game about growing marijuana, called Weed Firm.

As you might have noticed the game is no longer available on the Apple App Store. This was entirely Apple's decision, not ours. We guess the problem was that the game was just too good and got to number one in All Categories, since there are certainly a great number of weed based apps still available, as well as games promoting other so-called 'illegal activities' such as shooting people, crashing cars and throwing birds at buildings...If we let hypocrites determine what content is suitable for us we will soon all be watching teletubbies instead of Breaking Bad and playing... oh I don't know… nothing good comes to mind, without some form of 'illegal activity' or other really.

A couple of things to note. First, for those of us that are older than, say, fifteen, the rapid decriminalization of all things marijuana in this country is on a pace that can be described as no less than staggering. If you simply chart out what's gone on over the past decade and extrapolate into the next, it isn't off base to expect marijuana to go the way of tobacco and alcohol within that time. So the morality play is on shaky ground to begin with. Add to that, as Kotaku does, that the only thing consistent about Apple's app removal standards is its astounding inconsistency, and we should probably all begin asking ourselves exactly what the point of any of this is.

You can find places to buy weed on the app store. You can rate different strains of weed. You can download apps that teach you more about marijuana, or get apps that will give you various cosmetic weed changes to your phone. You can even roll fake joints. You can't, however, download a game where you grow marijuana. Other games, such as Weed Farmer and Weed Tycoon, remain active on the app store for now—but these games weren't as popular or as well-rated as Weed Firm was.

What, on the face of it, might have appeared to be a genuine, if misplaced, attempt to apply some kind of moral code suddenly dissolves into a PR response. As long as the marijuana-related games are generating money without being popular enough to draw any kind of wider attention, Apple's moral qualms go by the wayside. They either don't have the interest or the actual capacity to actively police all such offending games. Either answer renders the morality play moot to begin with: either you can enforce your strict guidelines in general or you can't. Apple, in the case of games revolving around marijuana, clearly can't. So what are we all doing here?

Well, we're suffering under Apple's delusion that we're children, of course. Children in need of a firm hand and the guidance of our parents, which apparently somehow became Apple. I suppose it isn't all that different from the old AOL walled-internet days, which I happily note went the hell away over a decade ago when the internet and its average denizen grew up. Maybe it's time now for Apple to stop it with the whole Puritan routine and start trusting their customers a bit more?

Filed Under: app store, apps, arbitrary, drugs, gatekeeper, itunes, morality, weed
Companies: apple