“An app promoting a conspiracy theory featuring Hillary Clinton and a child sex ring lingered at the top of Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store for months, with both tech giants receiving a cut of the revenue in the process,” Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny report for NBC News.
“The app, called ‘QDrops,’ sends alerts about a conspiracy theory called Qanon, an offshoot of the ‘pizzagate’ fiction that claimed Clinton was running a child sex trafficking ring out of the basement of a Washington pizza shop that didn’t even have a basement,” Collins and Zadrozny report. “Like many conspiracy theories, Qanon got its start on 4chan, an anonymous posting site that is a seedbed for extreme thought and a large number of online subcultures.”
“Apple removed the QDrops app from its app store on Sunday after inquiries from NBC News,” Collins and Zadrozny report. “‘The App Store has always supported all points of view being represented, as long as the apps are respectful to users with differing opinions and the quality of the experience is great,’ Apple spokesperson Stephanie Saffer said in a statement. ‘We have published clear guidelines that developers must follow in order for their apps to be distributed by the App Store, designed to foster innovation and provide a safe environment to all of our users. We will take swift action to remove any apps that violate our guidelines or the law — we take this responsibility very seriously.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Oops.
We’ve always been focused on curation…. We don’t subscribe to the view that you have to let everybody in that wants to or if you don’t believe in free speech. We’re like the guy in the corner store. What you sell in that store says something about you. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, April 6, 2018
If submitted as a news app, or news update site that users had to join for moderated posts, it probably wouldn’t have raised any red flags. They wouldn’t have put in any inflammatory info until after the app was approved, don’t think there’s any real review of apps after they’ve passed the initial approval process.
Not that I agree with what they were peddling but “Apple cashed in” is rather specious
True. Ever since the entire “fake news” national mantra started, it’s hard not to see the variations on what is fake and what is real. There is a saying, “There is no news in the truth, and no truth in the news.” By saying Apple cashed in, they create a variation of fake news. They make it seem as if Apple was peddling conspiracy theories when nothing could be further from the truth.
Headlines even and especially those from major news outlets are often the most insidious form of fake news. No one offers the simple OBJECTIVE TRUTH.
“A proposition is generally considered objectively true (to have objective truth) when its truth conditions are met without biases caused by feelings, ideas, opinions, etc., of a sentient subject.”
People refuse to accept they have biases, so while OBJECTIVE TRUTHS exist, they’re still as easily rejected as any other information that people don’t like.
Objectively, Apple cashed in… they got paid, they earned, they benefited, etc. as a result as that application being on the app store and costing more than FREE. That’s an objective fact. However, people are biased against the phrase “cashed in” and, if they don’t recognize they have a bias against “cashed in”, they jump to FAKE NEWS! A good example of Fake News in this case would be reporting that Apple worked with QDrops in order to get the app on the store in the first place, including paying the developers salaries and buying them homes. And, I’d be willing to bet that, put in a different format on a different website, you would find folks that would believe that without any sort of check.
“Apple worked with QDrops in order to get the app on the store in the first place, including paying the developers salaries and buying them homes” Tweeting this now ;
I read the article. A waste of time. Anyone that would blame Apple for promoting QDrops for profit is blinded by their own ideology.
I heard about the initial rumor and dismissed it as silly. I am amazed that someone could make good money on an app based on that meme.
I suspect most of the people that visit the site do it for the lols. And I think the is too silly to be a danger.
Unless the site advocated violence, I would have left it up. I believe in America, people have the right the believe anything they want, no matter how silly, stupid, sick, or perverted. However, people do not have the right to break laws. They can believe what they want but they can’t act on those beliefs if the acts are illegal.
I think a better response from Apple would have been to promote an app that disproves and pokes fun at QDrops. If every time someone searched for QDrops they got a list that featured anti QDrops sites, people interested in QDrops would get plenty of information countering QDrops.
“I suspect most of the people that visit the site do it for the lols.”
Good point, I know there’s probably a lot of people that get a laugh out of child sex trafficking rings.
“A lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
Who said it first is disputed, but it is pretty accurate.
Q is real, anyone who doesn’t believe that is not paying attention. Q is far more accurate than CNN, MSNBC or FOX for that matter. Many people want to bury their head in the sand to the FACT that the US Government, and especially its intel agencies have been run as criminal enterprises, not least of all to spy and try to destroy the Trump campaign. When the storm hits, the traitors will get what’s coming to them. Best show on earth.
If the US Government was trying to destroy Trump’s campaign, they failed miserably and instead blew apart Hillary’s efforts.
Yes, the traitors will get what’s coming to them, and Trump and his minions will go down in flames.
“fiction”
Well this article isn’t worth reading for shit.