Should the App Store change the approval process?
The Apple App Store, purveyor of fine applications for iPhones and iPod Touches everywhere, has been under fire lately for its approval processes. Do the rules need to be changed?
On one side of the equation, we have an application wherein one needed to shake an infant to death in order to win the game. That one got approved. On the other side, we have the Nine Inch Nails app that contains the use of the F-word in the lyrics of a song that’s being played on the radio. That one does not get approved. Is there something wrong with the process?
In the case of the baby-shaking “game,” the app was withdrawn from the App Store as soon as the complaints started, which was very soon after the first copies were downloaded by users. The initial approval was obviously a severe error in judgement that must have been duplicated several times down the chain for such a shocker to ever reach the public.
In the now-much-celebrated case of the naughty word in the NIN lyrics (surprise!) and the many public statements by Trent Reznor, with commensurate back and forth between the parties, there is the question of whether one word should make a difference. Especially one word by a rock eminence. Is that really enough to keep all those NIN fans from getting their fix?
This sort of near-censorship is always a difficult tightrope to walk. Where, exactly, do you draw the line? The infamous baby-shaking app was obviously causing a lot of people discomfort, but I’m not sure how it is possible to guarantee a “common sense test” will ever get into any process. Whoever approved that app simply did not use any sense, common or otherwise. With the Reznor app, there is a problem with young kids getting hold of it. There are no parental controls on the iPhone yet, as mentioned by a Guardian article, and parents don’t want their iPodded adolescents to hear from their earbuds a word that they probably hear many times per day on the playground.
Common sense from a corporation may be too much to hope for, and the wider societal censorship muddle will never end. So, although the App Store approval process may get better over time, there will almost certainly be disputes far into the future. The Supreme Court has been unable to sort these things out over all these years, and I don’t know that we can expect Apple to do any better.
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