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Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

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Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#191

Post by mindslight »

arca_vorago wrote: post #28

A slippery slope down the road to censorship. When you place yourself at the head of the censorship table, you open up a can of worms that is difficult to close. (and no, I am not referencing "censorship" of illegal material) For me though, this is nothing new for Apple, and it's why I don't like their software in general. As RMS said, roughly, "Apple puts the user in a prison. It is a beautiful prison though." Some…

> I still think those who embrace FOSS now will be at a huge advantage as time progresses and the nanny mentality of companies such as Apple and Microsoft becomes more prevalent

I'm not so sure about that. Apple is doing this to gain favor with their customers, who want to feel safe in an insular bubble.

I had long thought that Free would win out economically, when centralized stores were forced to ban torrent clients and the like, but unfortunately the zeitgeist has even shifted to pay streaming apps. This is the real damage that centralization causes - the culture gets permanently warped from internalizing good-enough solutions.

Then again we've had decades of receive-only broadcast media conditioning people into thinking centralization is the natural way of things, so maybe it's just going to take that much longer to break it up. Still, I feel that this current decentralization swing might be our last chance to correctly distribute power, besides the otherwise inevitable societal collapse.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#192

Post by jasonlotito »

MBCook wrote: post #134
jasonlotito wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it takes a lot of people and time to figure it out for each app on the store. They've already approved these apps. They already have the people to approve these apps. > And when it comes to this kind of stuff Apple doesn't like spending lots of people and time on these kind of things. Incorrect. They've already demonstrated they want to do this. After all, you had to have people find and remove these apps in th…

> They've already approved these apps. They already have the people to approve these apps. The truth is Apple approves a ton of stuff that is clearly and directly against clauses of the App Store rules. They seem to exist mostly to let Apple pull your app later and have a pre-defined reason. Enforcement is incredibly inconsistent, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if there was some pretty racist stuff that had been t…

> The truth is...

Yes, I know. That doesn't mean they get a free pass because of it.

> But they don't have to critically examine the game...

Yes, I know, but once again, that doesn't mean they get a free pass because of it.

Listen, you are giving them excuses. Excuses that are, frankly, wrong. They are a company with massive resources. They could have done this the right way. They decided not to. It's as simple as that.

They are wrong. They did wrong. End of story.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#193

Post by DanBC »

moron4hire wrote: post #168
DanBC wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody is disputing the fact that the flag represented a racist ideology. At least one person in this thread is doing exactly that.

That was long after this line of conversation started. Grandparent poster wanted to stand on a soap box.

PaulHaugis's post is earlier than your post I replied to.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#194

Post by norea-armozel »

merpnderp wrote: post #172
mc32 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might as well ban the Turkish flag too as that is a symbol of the genocide against Armenians --or the Soviet flag as it symbolizes the oppression of many nations and peoples by the soviet regime. And apple would cede, if the people affected made enough of a fuss, so this whole thing is more about perception and PR more than actual beliefs in justice, etc.

Doesn't the Soviet flag represent engineered famines that killed tens of millions? Certainly on par with the South's flag.

I guess no one heard about holodomor famines.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#195

Post by mladenkovacevic »

MBCook wrote: post #188
onewaystreet wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because gun control is pretty much dead in the US. If 20 children being killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting wasn't enough to pass new legislation, 9 adults certainly wouldn't be. The flag has become an issue so politicians can be seen "doing something."

Yeah. No need to discus gun control, the issue with SC is clearly racism. And how do we get rid of racism? Remove the symbol. We'll get rid of the symbol and the racism will be fixed. We took action! We did something! It's solved! Time to move on. What's the point in discussing complicated issues of housing development or law enforcement and making changes that might not have a positive and noticeable effect for a ge…

This one's a little different still. What you're describing is small-scale political misdirection and shortsightedness. Politicians always react in this nonsensical way whether motivated by powerful lobby groups or personal advancement.

Here we also have large corporations that seemingly have no horse in this race other than some cheap, blatantly dishonest PR participating in this moral misdirection on a grand scale. For what reason? I doubt Apple's comical over-reaching in banning of these games is worth the liberal brownie points.

Does this maybe have something to with using the confederate flag controversy to distract people from the Trans Pacific Partnership bill which is being rammed through without any significant challenges as we speak?

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#196

Post by paulhauggis »

rmxt wrote: post #181
paulhauggis wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The swastika on my forehead is a symbol of love and peace. How could you be offended?" If it's turned a specific way, it is the Nazi symbol. In Asia for instance (where I lived and studied for 5+ years), you will see the symbol all over the place. It is still a Buddhist peace sign in many other parts of the world and in fact, I have purchased multiple items online (and on Amazon) with the symbol on it. I know plenty…

Primarily states' rights or primarily slavery, that "peculiar institution"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech It's a bit of historical revisionism to suggest that slavery wasn't the main driving cause of the rebellion, and ultimately the treason, committed by those ruling in the South. It was the choice of slavery over patriotism back when the states seceded then, and it's ever more abhorrent now to th…

"t's a bit of historical revisionism to suggest that slavery wasn't the main driving cause of the rebellion"

It's also revisionist history that Lincoln cared about slaves' rights. The main reason slavery was made illegal was to gut the south if it's resources, and it worked. The side-effect was, however, morally right.

Here is a good example of this:

http://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-...

This is taken from a Lincoln speech:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races,” he began, going on to say that he opposed blacks having the right to vote, to serve on juries, to hold office and to intermarry with whites. What he did believe was that, like all men, blacks had the right to improve their condition in society and to enjoy the fruits of their labor. In this way they were equal to white men, and for this reason slavery was inherently unjust."

With that said, should we also remove everything Lincoln supported or anything related to Lincoln from our government and stores?

"But now that we are generations removed and have the opportunity to choose the legacy that we promote?"

It's all about context, which seems to have been lost in today's society. The Buddhist peace symbol is no longer a symbol of Nazis and the Confederate flag is no longer a symbol of slavery. It's been turned into a symbol of southern pride, nothing more.

The US flag probably means oppression for many other cultures and people throughout history as does pretty much every single flag in the world. But somehow, those are okay. Should we remove it because we slaughtered the native americans and they are offended by it?

"Why choose a legacy that encourages the romanticization of a culture that supported the inferiority of one race compared to another?"

If this is the case, why aren't we having a conversation about Islam and other cultures that encourage the same thing..or worse?

Islam can't even be discussed with open and honesty without "Islamaphobe" being thrown out. It just seems very phony to me.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#197

Post by MBCook »

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #195
MBCook wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. No need to discus gun control, the issue with SC is clearly racism. And how do we get rid of racism? Remove the symbol. We'll get rid of the symbol and the racism will be fixed. We took action! We did something! It's solved! Time to move on. What's the point in discussing complicated issues of housing development or law enforcement and making changes that might not have a positive and noticeable effect for a ge…

This one's a little different still. What you're describing is small-scale political misdirection and shortsightedness. Politicians always react in this nonsensical way whether motivated by powerful lobby groups or personal advancement. Here we also have large corporations that seemingly have no horse in this race other than some cheap, blatantly dishonest PR participating in this moral misdirection on a grand scale.…

Yeah, that comment isn't meant to apply to Apple, it was just a response/agreement with onewaystreet.

I know this kind of thing always happens, but I was surprised how fast 'everyone' latched onto the flag as the core issue this time that will solve everything.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#198

Post by MichaelGG »

mc32 wrote: post #100
JohnGB wrote: post #9

So what about all WWII games that have a swastika, or any number of historical flags that are simply referencing history rather than supporting an ideal? This is plain ridiculous.

They might as well ban the Turkish flag too as that is a symbol of the genocide against Armenians --or the Soviet flag as it symbolizes the oppression of many nations and peoples by the soviet regime. And apple would cede, if the people affected made enough of a fuss, so this whole thing is more about perception and PR more than actual beliefs in justice, etc.

The US had slavery too, so why not ban the US flag?

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#199

Post by nmrm2 »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #184
nmrm2 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't give you hard data. But anecdotally, most people I know who own an iPhone and aren't Apple devouts chose it because "the software is better". I assume the typical consumer lumps Apps in with OS, because I doubt they are making purchasing decisions based upon the quality of the OS kernel or the quality of the background processes...

Acoording to statistics like this [1], smartphone users are highly likely to stay with whatever they are used to. Thus it follows that their impression that "the software is better" is based on outdated information. [1]. http://images.techhive.com/images/idge/imported/article/ctw/...

That's irrelevant. What matters in the context of this discussion is the consumer's perception, not the objective reality.

Re: Apple Removes American Civil War Games from the App Store

#200

Post by mc32 »

MichaelGG wrote: post #198
mc32 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might as well ban the Turkish flag too as that is a symbol of the genocide against Armenians --or the Soviet flag as it symbolizes the oppression of many nations and peoples by the soviet regime. And apple would cede, if the people affected made enough of a fuss, so this whole thing is more about perception and PR more than actual beliefs in justice, etc.

The US had slavery too, so why not ban the US flag?

Well just about every country in the western hemisphere (n and s America) had slavery, so we should ban all the rest too.
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