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GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

applecensorship.com

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Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#71

Post by mikkelam »

amingilani wrote: post #8

Please note that while Apple itself may censor applications in regions, creators of the apps may choose to limit their distributions as well. For example: Bank of America's mobile banking app isn't available in Pakistan where I currently am, but this website wouldn't differentiate between that type of censorship or Apple's censorship. But, personally, I still think this is a great idea!

The app specifically says "United States" and "China". There is no comparison with other countries. As a result i would guess it only checks those two countries' app store page

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#72

Post by ZeWaren »

amingilani wrote: post #8

Please note that while Apple itself may censor applications in regions, creators of the apps may choose to limit their distributions as well. For example: Bank of America's mobile banking app isn't available in Pakistan where I currently am, but this website wouldn't differentiate between that type of censorship or Apple's censorship. But, personally, I still think this is a great idea!

I've published a few apps that run the same platform on different countries with different branding (name, logo, theme, etc.)

I had to restrict each of them to their own country (i.e. preventing German users from reaching the French app), otherwise during the app-store submission reviews, the reviewer would reject us because according to them the app being reviewed is a ripoff of the other apps of the same account.

It's like:

    Your app "Gmail UK" is a ripoff of another app of the store: "Gmail US".
Fun times.

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#73

Post by zimpenfish »

sneak wrote: post #3

Great site. Additionally, this doesn't show the endless number of apps that Apple censored from all countries' iOS app stores because they contained or might contain images of human bodies. It's not something the site can do, but it's important to remember that this is just the tip of the iceberg: at least in China they are required by law to block e.g. VPN apps; no such equivalent law requires them to ban apps that…

> ban apps that contain nipples in the United States; that censorship is entirely voluntary

Is that true? Because that would cut out the Tumblr, Imgur, Reddit, Flickr, Twitter, etc. apps. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#74

Post by Arnt »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #44
duskwuff wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hesitate to call that "censorship" at all. Some apps simply aren't relevant in a country because they're associated with a physical service which doesn't exist there. For example, a number of food delivery apps (like Uber Eats and Grubhub) don't operate in China, and as such have chosen to not make their app available there.

And nobody ever leaves the country. Or if they do, they're totally willing to go through the entire giant hassle of switching their account for a few days.

At a guess, restricting an area-specific app to its service area diminishes the number of unanswerable support questions and one-star reviews by people outside the service area.

Pity for expats (like me).

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#75

Post by yoz-y »

duskwuff wrote: post #37
amingilani wrote: post #8

Please note that while Apple itself may censor applications in regions, creators of the apps may choose to limit their distributions as well. For example: Bank of America's mobile banking app isn't available in Pakistan where I currently am, but this website wouldn't differentiate between that type of censorship or Apple's censorship. But, personally, I still think this is a great idea!

I would hesitate to call that "censorship" at all. Some apps simply aren't relevant in a country because they're associated with a physical service which doesn't exist there. For example, a number of food delivery apps (like Uber Eats and Grubhub) don't operate in China, and as such have chosen to not make their app available there.

App Store search is at least partly to blame for this too. For example Uber is available in France but of course it does not work in all cities. The countries is just a larger version of the same thing.

Ideally apps that have regional restrictions should be able to declare that and then when you do a search it would not show results outside of the scope unless you searched for the exact name or enabled outside of region search.

Users are partly to blame too, selling an untranslated app in France will bring down tons of 1 star reviews specifically calling out lack of French version. I suppose some developers just decide to not deal with that and retire the app from the store.

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#76

Post by fluffycat »

musicale wrote: post #47

Isn't this just "Apple complies with local laws in China (etc.) requiring them to remove VPN apps and hand over data belonging to political dissidents?" Greatfire is right: Apple could indeed take a stand for freedom - if the shareholders demanded it and and were willing to shut down Apple's iPhone sales and manufacturing business, which is responsible for the bulk of Apple's income and profits. Google famously left…

Still I find it comical that people thinks Apple keeps the moral high ground. I personally find Apples position disgusting and super hypocritical. Sure, they are the white knight that keeps you safe from other monsters, only if you avert your gaze from China. At least Google so far sticked to its decision, and hopefully keeps it that way.

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#77

Post by sneak »

zimpenfish wrote: post #73
sneak wrote: post #3

Great site. Additionally, this doesn't show the endless number of apps that Apple censored from all countries' iOS app stores because they contained or might contain images of human bodies. It's not something the site can do, but it's important to remember that this is just the tip of the iceberg: at least in China they are required by law to block e.g. VPN apps; no such equivalent law requires them to ban apps that…

> ban apps that contain nipples in the United States; that censorship is entirely voluntary Is that true? Because that would cut out the Tumblr, Imgur, Reddit, Flickr, Twitter, etc. apps. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

I urge you to look into why the Reddit NSFW search looks and works the way it does, and why Tumblr alienated their userbase this quarter. In both cases you will find the root cause to be Apple app store policies.

Steve Jobs once famously cited iOS as having “freedom from porn”, and went on to say that people would care more about it being blocked “when you have kids”.

For being a California peacemonger, he missed out on big swaths of being a hippie.

Re: GreatFire is tracking Apple iOS applications for instances of censorship

#78

Post by zimpenfish »

sneak wrote: post #77
zimpenfish wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ban apps that contain nipples in the United States; that censorship is entirely voluntary Is that true? Because that would cut out the Tumblr, Imgur, Reddit, Flickr, Twitter, etc. apps. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

I urge you to look into why the Reddit NSFW search looks and works the way it does, and why Tumblr alienated their userbase this quarter. In both cases you will find the root cause to be Apple app store policies. Steve Jobs once famously cited iOS as having “freedom from porn”, and went on to say that people would care more about it being blocked “when you have kids”. For being a California peacemonger, he missed out…

> Tumblr [...] root cause to be Apple app store policies

No, that was almost certainly because of SESTA/FOSTA and was underway well before they had their child porn snafu that got them temporarily booted from the App Store.

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