Apple under fire for approving ‘gay cure’ app | Hacker News Reader

Apple under fire for approving ‘gay cure’ app

siliconrepublic.com

23 pointsNSMeta25 comments

This highlights the problem with Apple's decision to play the part of the gatekeeper in their app store, and seriously calls into question their claim of not allowing offensive content.

Apple does need to be careful here - the GLBT population tends to skew towards Apple products, at least based on my experience, and I doubt they want to alienate this segment of their user base.

I went and looked this up on the App Store. The title of the app is "Exodus International." The categories in the bottom menu are "Home", "Latest News", "Events", "Video", and "More." The "More" section includes links to Twitter, Facebook, testimonials, podcasts, a blog, FAQs, some kind of question-answer page, a fact sheet, and "featured resources."

Presumably somewhere in there is the video or text that talks about curing homosexuality, but this app appears to fall into the category of restating whatever happens to be available on the publisher's website...kind of like ESPN or my bank. It's not a single-purpose issue app like the Manhattan Declaration app that was rejected.

Great. First they were under fire for censoring apps, now they're taking heat for not censoring apps.

Yep. Goes with the territory. If you assume the role of gatekeeper, everyone, even people who don't like you acting as gatekeeper, can legitimately criticize you for the decisions you make about what does and doesn't go through the gate.

And everybody will have conflicting (even inconsistent) opinions about those decisions.

And understandably so. Apple claims that their approval process is supposed to keep out low quality apps and objectionable content, to the extent that they've rejected applications that simply display content easily reachable using their own browser. Now they've approved an application that is clearly offensive to many people - and one that makes claims to do something that medical and psychological experts agree can't be done.

I'm thinking this is a highly political issue I'd rather not see Apple wade in on.

I value freedom of expression over any particular political party or political/religious belief (including this particular inanity). Do I think fake ass religiously oriented programs don't work should be published? No. Do I think it's apple's role to choose whether to publish them? No, I do not.

Objectionable content is about keeping the store safe for kids. Honestly, many parents would consider things around gay dating (http://www.grindr.com) objectionable. Definitely enough people do to qualify for "many people" to be an apt description. Should apple remove that app? Oh look, now that it's an app you agree with, you don't want them to censor it.

Freedom of Expression > Pretty much everything else.

Sorry, but claiming to reject "Objectionable" material that they classify themselves opened them up to a "political" issue.

While I find this app sad, I don't have any issue with it being there... Except when compared to some of the apps that have been rejected.

Why is this offensive content? I'm all for gay rights and know a few men and women with homosexual inclinations (and I'm not bothered by it one bit), BUT freedom of expression is as much a right as the ability to choose your own religion or sexual inclination. This app probably provides valuable content to someone out there, and as such should be permitted to do so.

I'd be more worried of an Apple that blocks all apps that deal with content they don't agree with than an Apple that allows apps that might might strike the activist nerve in the sector of the population that loves to throw rocks and close streets to protest whatever they perceive to be a threat against affirmative action.

"Curing" other peoples sexual inclination is just as offensive as "curing" their religious inclination. You are not really free to choose your own religion (or sexual orientation) if you are constantly ostracized by the community for your choice. Ostracization removes choice, i.e. freedom. So to ensure freedom of expression (for other people than yourself), there must be some limitations so people with non-mainstream choices are not ostracized.

An effective method to ostracize other people is to provide a lot of "help" to "cure" them for their "choice". This creates a common perception that some choices are less valuable than others, and that people choosing those less valuable choices are less worth and it's ok to beat them up. And this method is particulary surviveable as it can hide behind "freedom of expression".

Then again that would mean that I have to get offended every time I get a visit from a Jehova's witness that wants to 'cure' my atheism. Believing I'm wrong for not having the same religious believes is their prerogative (an there is absolutely nothing wrong with that), but being offensive is not telling me they think I'm wrong, it's telling me that it doesn't matter what I think because there is only one correct religion to follow without letting express my point of view.

Freedom of speech comes with dangers and responsibilities that lean on your shoulders. If you're gay, it's your choice to come out or not. When you do so you automagically earn the right to defend your position when being confronted with an opposing point, and you also get the danger of being ostracized from a specific social group. That's not the opposing party's fault, nor is it yours, it's just the way the world works wether we like it or not. I might get kicked out of the basketball court cause I'm white, or banned from a church because I'm an atheist, which is for all purposes not fair (in the grand scheme of things), but the same way I'm being given the choice to choose who I am and who I socialize with, a social group has the right to exclude people that don't match their qualifications.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that it sucks and it's definitely not fair for certain parties, but look at it this way: If you're a popular kid in high school and you want to hang out with the cool people, it's your right to exclude the people that are not cool as long as you don't violate their rights. If you're playing tennis at a private club at which you're not actually a member and the authorities that manage said place want you to leave, it's their prerogative to kick you out.

If you're gay and you come by an application to 'cure you with prayer' you have the right to NOT download it, as well as you have to right to express your disapproval as long as you're not violating anyone's rights. The same way that people that agree with the applications use have the right to download, use, and incite the use of said app - once again, without stepping over other peoples rights.

At the end of the day we all have the human right to make our own choices and live with the consequences of out actions. If an action is going to alienate me from a social group I have a choice. I have a choice to go ahead with whatever belief I might have, or I might value more the social interaction I might get excluded from. Gay people have two choices in this matter, if you agree with their point of view, you can download the app (a high schooler might need to get laid and drink booze to get into the crowd, illegal notwithstanding, he's free to make his own choice to either fit in or not). If you don't you can ignore it and then make a blog post about how you're unhappy with the apps existence. Every person has a right to dislike me and my beliefs, and that's fine. They, however, have no right to violate my rights while disliking me and my beliefs... and this app is not violating anyone's rights while preaching their beliefs through it.

Someone get to work on creating an app to cure people of their heterosexuality through the use of pics of hot guys and alcohol.

Trying to 'cure' gay people and recruit them into a religious organization and culture is not as offensive to me as the practice of a central big-brother type authorizing and deleting programs on a computer that I own.

If we don't fight this sort of thing one day we will wake up and all computers will be like cable TV. you can choose between high-quality stimulating channels, or "paths", but try to do something yourself, and you need millions of dollars to penetrate the red tape and get your application presented to more than a few people.

>Trying to 'cure' gay people and recruit them into a religious organization and culture is not as offensive to me as the practice of a central big-brother type authorizing and deleting programs on a computer that I own.

You have some really screwed up priorities.

So, you'd prefer a coercive, invasive system to limit what you can and can't see and do, vs having available for download someone's religious opinions?

Like it or not, this app falls directly under free speech protection. No one is forcing you to install it and peruse it's content, and if someone does they're the one at fault. This isn't the Westboro Baptist Church showing up at a funeral and harassing people against their will.

Free society == people are allowed to say things you don't particularly like.

This is actually why the complaints about the quality and questionable taste/propriety of the Android ecosystem actually sort of make me feel good about it. When I see questionable decisions being made, I know that the freedom to make those questionable decisions exists.

I don't want my eyes to see anything offensive when I turn on my computer. I want only pure wholesome things, things that won't upset me or cause any unpleasant idea or thought to cascade through my mind. I don't want to hear about anybody picketing funerals, nobody should be trying to cure gay people. If something offends some people, I want to make sure that not only I don't see it, but everyone on the planet can't see it.

If everyone want an idea to go away, like Galileo's idiotic Sun-centric model, then it must be destroyed. Censor the apps. The will of the majority must be carried out!

Congratulations, first off, for responding to an argument I didn't even make. Kudos on your strawman.

>Trying to 'cure' gay people and recruit them into a religious organization and culture

>having available for download someone's religious opinions

You do realize that these are two completely different things, right? You do know this, yes?

Sorry, but a group of bigots who want to "cure" people because they don't like their sexual orientation is a lot worse than Apple corporate coming up with a policy you don't like. By your own argument, you don't like what they're doing, don't buy an iPhone.

In the worst case scenarios, Apple becomes a restrictive company and no one wants to buy their products anymore, vs. a group of bigots gains enough traction to incite hatred and violence against a minority group.

Guess which one of these is worse? If you really think someone diddling the apps on your iphone is on the same plane as a hate group, you need to sit down and do some serious thinking for a long, long time.

So basically you want to say that we should fight against censoring BUT not against gay-hatred?

Man I can't believe your priorities.

First rule should ALWAYS be: human rights.

Freedom of expression is a human right.

He's saying asking for censorship of an idea you do not agree with is not the right way to go.

Use other attitudes to attack the app. Honestly, attacking the app any other number of ways that DIDN'T get it press would have been much more effective. It would have disappeared into the void of a quarter million apps.

Why aren't we fighting against religious-hated as well? Both are acts of free speech. I should be able to hate anyone I want to hate and I shouldn't be censored because it hurts someone's feelings.

Don't know why you're getting downvoted ... actually, that isn't true, I DO know why you're getting downvoted, but it's wrong, so I got you back to a positive number.

For those downvoting who disagree -- particularly those claiming his priorities are screwed up, the obvious question to you is whether or not disagreeing with somebody is cause for downvotes.

I downvoted him because I found the content of his post to be non-informative and boderline trollbaitish.

His priorities don't seem to be as in tune with reality as what I would normally expect here, but that wasn't the explicit reason for my downvote.

Differing opinions and priorities are the primary reason that the world doesn't act in unison. It is the basis for differing political parties, ideals and religions.

While most people agree that rights are important, it is each individual's experiences that determines which items are prioritized in their mind. Education is important. Health care is important. Civil liberties are important. Freedom of expression is important. Ask any number of different people which is the most important, and you're likely to get any number of different answers.

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