Censorship on the iPad and iPhone

News, trends, and the future of publishing
User avatar
mmcdonald64
Posts: 99
Joined: March 14th, 2010, 6:57 pm
Contact:

Re: Censorship on the iPad and iPhone

Post by mmcdonald64 » April 13th, 2010, 3:04 pm

Next thing you know, pens and pencils will be confiscated because someone might write a naughty word with them. What's next? Crayons and sidewalk chalk? Yeah, I'm exaggerating, but it's a scary thought that a company thinks it has the right to censor something that they don't own. They own the device, not the books someone purchases for the device. That would be a like buying a dvd player and having an R rated movie that the dvd player censors automatically by blacking out any nudity and bleeping out the swear words. Who would stand for that? Why do iPad/iPhone buyers accept it?

Edited: because I should not try and post from work. I rush too much!

JenLT
Posts: 20
Joined: December 8th, 2009, 12:41 pm
Contact:

Re: Censorship on the iPad and iPhone

Post by JenLT » April 15th, 2010, 4:54 am

I'm just wondering what there is to protest here. Doesn't Apple have the right to decide what they do and do not want to sell? Maybe I am missing something altogether here. The articles pointed out in this thread say that Apple doesn't use words it feels is offensive in the description of their products, doesn't sell application that it feels may be offensive, and doesn't sell any applications mentioning the Dali Lami in China where that is the law. The articles about China specifically stated that other companies like Google etc do the same thing in China or they would't be allowed to sell products there. As well, according to one article cited here, Apple doesn't go out of their way to comply with China's censorship. For instance, they don't mention applications that allow the user to link to sites/things China censors.

I see nothing here about altering the content in a book (or a dvd for the matter). So is it just that people feel like Apple should sell/allow any applications for its device that someone wants to make? Because it seems to me that if Apple allows an application that is offensive, it becomes a publicity problem for them. Maybe Apple would be better off not being involved in the content of the applications, (and if I owned an I-pad I might be aggravated by not being able to buy any type of app I wanted) but that isn't that up to them?

It sort of feels like the same thing as saying that a publisher that doesn't publish erotica is guilty of censorship, or an editor for a Christian publisher who asks an author to cut back the sex scene in order to consider their manuscript is censoring writing.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 4 guests