“A day after Apple began the mass purge of applications depicting the Confederate flag, the Nazi Swastika is still standing prominently in some games,” Gregory Ferenstein writes for Forbes. “The choice to ban a symbol of slavery from historical games, but not of mass genocide, reveals how tech companies struggle to apply hate speech guidelines — often with strange inconsistency. At the moment, Apple allows me kill Nazis but not Confederate generals.”
“Apple reportedly began removing apps and games that display the Confederate flag from its store, in response to recent public pressure to remove the infamous Civil War symbol from businesses and state houses,” Ferenstein writes. “The tech giant has even banned popular Civil War re-enactment games that display the flag in historical context, such as Civil War 1863.”
“‘We are writing to notify you that your app has been removed from the App Store because it includes images of the Confederate flag used in offensive and mean-spirited ways,’ wrote Apple to the director of these Civil War Games, Andrew Mulholland, according to gaming blog Kotaku,” Ferenstein writes. “Censorship rules are especially problematic as tech companies become the dominate channels for free speech. Ultimately, tech companies are powerful new gatekeepers of the 1st Amendment; their decisions have profound implications.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Can o’ worms.
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Tim Cook has let his personal politics affect Apple; Board may have to rein him in – June 25, 2015
Apple removes all American Civil War games from the App Store because of the Confederate flag? – June 25, 2015