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'Hide It Hillary' mobile game banned by Apple, title like 'Punch Trump' approved

washingtontimes.com

51–60 of 72 posts

Re: 'Hide It Hillary' mobile game banned by Apple, title like 'Punch Trump' approved

#52
post #22
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly don't think they should allow apps like hide Hillary or punch trump. They're low value and only promote hate towards the person.

How does "Hide it Hillary" promote hate? It's satirizing something she actually did in real life. "Punch Trump", on the other hand, has violence in it, but even that is not sufficient to claim that it promotes violence.

As pointless as they may seem, the web has a long history of games allowing users to pretend to punch various celebrities, and the "punch famous person X" genre probably predates that. There have also been TV shows like Celebrity Deathmatch, and IIRC one popular show for teens/tweens had its main character use her computer to put the face of another character into a boxing simulation.

I think the cat is out of the bag on the punch X genre for now, but society's tastes can still change over time.

Re: 'Hide It Hillary' mobile game banned by Apple, title like 'Punch Trump' approved

#53
Go to the iTunes Store. Search for "Hillary".Enough anti-Clinton iPhone and iPad apps show up to indicate that this is an anomaly, not a systemic bias. The fact that a right-wing site got the WaPo to bite on it shows their gullibility rather than Apple's bias.

Re: 'Hide It Hillary' mobile game banned by Apple, title like 'Punch Trump' approved

#54

I'm quite curious about this article, less about the words, more about how it's being received. It has 43 upvotes in 41 minutes. For a rather bland subject, that's not half bad (point wise), potentially motivated by the political conflict involved, but that happens. However, in the time I've queued it in my "morning reading", I've refreshed it quite a few times and watched it flag, unflag, flag, unflag at least 5-6 r…

> There is certainly very little evidence to the claim of the article Little evidence? The claim is that this app was rejected and Trump satire apps are allowed - what evidence are you expecting other than the existence of the Punch Trump style apps on the App Store? Do you want a letter signed by Tim Cook saying that the App Store policies are intentionally biased?

There are satire apps on Itunes targeting Hillary Clinton.

It's very easy to make your case when you cherrypick one data point out of thousands.

Here's an app called Avoid Hillary[0] where you're Bill Clinton trying to dodge his wife. I honestly don't see how a boxing game with Donald Trump is any worse.

[0] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/avoid-hillary/id1009997468?m...

Re: 'Hide It Hillary' mobile game banned by Apple, title like 'Punch Trump' approved

#55
post #46
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the "vouch" feature working. Countdown on it being flagged down again: 1, 2, 3...

Where does the vouch link show up? I don't recall ever seeing one.

Right after the '1 hour ago', I think there might be a points restriction on being able to vouch.

Re: 'Hide It Hillary' mobile game banned by Apple, title like 'Punch Trump' approved

#56
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the "vouch" feature working. Countdown on it being flagged down again: 1, 2, 3...

And it's flagged again.

Interesting progression. For a while, it was flagged, and still racking up points at the #1 position, but now it's gone far away.

I wish we could actually discuss the issues raised by situations like this, without the pitchfork and flagging brigades coming out. You would think a site focused on technology could discuss IT security, hacking, and the potential influence of technology companies in shaping and directing political opinion. But unfortunately it tends to get shutdown before anything can get started.

Re: 'Hide It Hillary' mobile game banned by Apple, title like 'Punch Trump' approved

#57
I'm not sure how I feel about corporate censorship. On one hand we have property rights, which I believe in firmly and on the other hand we have freedom of speech/expression.

If we are going. To live in a world where public discourse takes place through private avenues we need to decide as a country which takes precedent, property rights or speech/expression.

Re: 'Hide It Hillary' mobile game banned by Apple, title like 'Punch Trump' approved

#58

Anyone that knows anything about the Apple App Store knows this piece is a little uninformed. 1. The two apps were probably reviewed by different people, and approvals from Apple have always been all over the place depending on the reviewer. "The independent developers said getting approved with Google took less than one hour, while Apple’s denial came after an eight-hour wait." 2. 8 hour wait? Wow. I remember when t…

Regardless of Apple's review process, the article makes a good point -- go search the app store for election related terms. There is almost no mention of Hillary, one way or another. In addition to lots of trump themed games, you'll find Fox news, Bernie and foreign elections. When Hillary is mentioned, she is in a screenshot for trump themed games.

Election news apps almost always show Trump in screenshots. It is hard to argue there is no supply of Hillary content if they are preferentially rejecting such apps.

Anyway, Apple's vetting process doesn't seem to be helping get minority (of developer resources) content into the store, and that seems relevant to HN.

Re: 'Hide It Hillary' mobile game banned by Apple, title like 'Punch Trump' approved

#59
post #18

Never attribute to malice that which can equally be explained by carelessness. My experience with completely nonpolitical apps strongly suggests the app approval process is very arbitrary and inconsistent across the board.

I attribute it to Apple and other Sillicon Valley companies being in favor of H1B legislations, and Hillary Clinton is the candidate that supports it from the get go.

[deleted]

Re: 'Hide It Hillary' mobile game banned by Apple, title like 'Punch Trump' approved

#60
post #47
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were just a matter of creating two political apps, one anti-red and one anti-blue, and observing that the anti-blue one is banned, I'd agree. The article cites 3 different games focussed on simulating violence against Trump, though, which to me is enough to suggest a trend.

Apple could have been rejecting one hundred apps which mock Trump without us knowing. You're a suggesting a trend based on a single data point.

That's absolutely right. I suggest a simple experiment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12420407

It should be possible to come up with ~10 'clone' games (slap trump/hillary with a fish, hit trump/hillary in the face with a pie, etc) by swapping a few assets. Phonegap could be used to deploy the same simple javascript/html5 app on android and iOS. Submit each app to Google/Apple and see what the acceptance rates look like. I would think that would be enough to confirm or disprove the existence of any bias.

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