“Toronto photo-sharing startup 500px is reporting today that both of its applications, 500px for iOS and its recent acquisition ISO500, have been pulled from the Apple App Store due to concerns about nude photos,” Sarah Perez reports for TechCrunch.
“The move came shortly after last night’s discussions with Apple related to an updated version of 500px for iOS, which was in the hands of an App Store reviewer,” Perez reports. “The Apple reviewer told the company that the update couldn’t be approved because it allowed users to search for nude photos in the app. This is correct to some extent, but 500px had actually made it tough to do so, explains Tchebotarev. New users couldn’t just launch the app and locate the nude images, he says, the way you can today on other social photo-sharing services like Instagram or Tumblr, for instance. Instead, the app defaulted to a “safe search” mode where these types of photos were hidden. To shut off safe search, 500px actually required its users to visit their desktop website and make an explicit change.”
Perez reports, “More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that the “nude” photos on 500px aren’t necessarily the same types of nude images users may find on other photo-sharing communities. That is, they’re not pornographic in nature… most of the nudes you’ll find on 500px, whose community tends to include professional photographers and other photo enthusiasts, are of an ‘artistic’ nature… User reaction, as expected, is a bit incredulous, considering how easy it is to find nudity in other apps, including in all web browsers.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: This walled garden is certainly not named Eden.