Apple removes "Gay Cure" app from iTunes
edibleapple.com
edibleapple.com
That said, I don't believe an app shall be removed because it may be deemed offensive (by whatever standards).
Or as Voltaire put it:
"I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it."
Or rather, if you make it your missing to ban "offensive" apps and a "gay cure app" gets approved, then you look like an ass.
I guess in this case Apple's standard is that they remove apps that are offensive to their shareholders and customers.
So if Apple pretends that it's doing this approval for the betterment of the App Store, like a Shepard blocking out impure apps from its garden, then they'd better make sure Gay Cure apps are out, otherwise they are hypocrites.
By your definition - it had thousands of downloads and the organisation that produced it has thousands of members who clearly do not find it offensive and that likely extends to tens or hundreds of thousands of evangelicals (if not millions).
That's how subjective works.
Any treatment / cure that is advertised as such (without BIG BOLD letters of warning) should be approved or banned by relevant organizations -- there's precedent for it, like Scientology's E-meters being required to be marked as a "religious device".
By my definition "offensive" is a notion or device that's used to spread hate or shame versus other people's condition, people which are really harmless for society as a whole -- since gayness is not really a disease.
That's contradictory - if it's offensive by definition, there is no room for interpretation by the subject and therefore it can not be subjective.
Should Apple ban iSmokeit and other apps that facilitate smoking?
Banning apps like iSmokeit would be like imposing your morality on the rest of the world, even if there are well-behaved smokers out there that only smoke in their own private space.
On the other hand apps that help you quit smoking are OK, since smoking IS bad for you in the long-run and dependency on smoking IS a treatable vice.
I understand why people were upset by the Gay-cure app, as people would be angry about an anti-vaccine app, or a pro-Nazi app.
I am not in favor of Apple's app store policy precisely because it encourages nanny-state morality on the flimsiest of moral grounds: profitability.
It reminds me of John Maynard Keynes' attributed quote: "Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."
But not to the death. I'm busy that week.
I, on the other hand - apart from not buying their products - have the right to observe that Apple Inc represents a bunch of unprincipled hypocrits.
I hope this helps.
That being said, I can understand why Apple did remove it, because it doesn't make any business sense to enter a PR war over the relatively miniscule amount of profit they'd make from this app.
Well, the organisation that created this app explicitly believes that. There's nothing implicit about it.
But it's not like they're forcing this app on people. I'm assuming it's being willingly used by people who believe homosexuality is wrong and think they can stop their own homosexual urges.
If that's what they believe, let them go for it, I reckon. I don't have a right to tell them that they should be having relations that they clearly believe are wrong or immoral.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Alan_turing#C...
I have to respectfully disagree. I'm glad they got rid of this stupid app. It's simply hate sugar-coated with psuedo-science. Apple made the right decision.
"app store removes questionable content" -- How is this news? It's not like the app store is known for being a "free" or "open" platform in the first place.
If it was hateful, I agree. But I don't think the article even says what the app does, so how do we know that it was "hate sugar-coated with psuedo-science"?
I assumed this app was supposed to help "ex-gays" (or whatever they call themselves now) somehow. If that's the case, it's probably only being downloaded by people already involved in this stuff anyway.
So if they're downloading it out of their own free will, and it doesn't incite hate or violence, I don't see why it needs to be censored.
It incites intolerance by implying that homosexuality is a disease.
This is the limit of freedom of speech under the US Constitution. This is not the limit for morally acceptable behavior, and has nothing at all to do with a private company's control over their historically tightly and arbitrarily controlled ecosystem.
edit: not even this. Incitements of violence is the limit of constitutional free speech, not mere hatred. But to believe that propaganda claiming some people can and should be "cured" of their sexuality isn't hatred is idiotic at best.
Shouldn't Apple remove all astrology apps then?
"of course you can, otherwise Apple wouldn't have approved an app that does it"
'Apple' is a name that carries authority and that can be used to lend credence to misinformation. That definitely does hurt people. Read the above as the last thing a father said to his gay son. If banning this app prevents even one tragedy, then good riddance. There are no disadvantages to applauding Apple for removing this app.
I'm not saying it should necessarily be upvoted or anything, I'm just wondering what part of it people are taking exception to.
this article mentions this: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/nyregion/12group.html?_r=3...
Parent not only responded to the question directly and cogently, but even cited sources. I'm bewildered.
(I am not taking that position, or any other position about the app or photophotoplasm’s comment, in this comment. I’m staying strictly on the meta level here. Void where prohibited by law. Contents may settle during shipping.)
unless I'm mistaken, it was a free app (with no ads), so they made no money off of it.
I'm sure a number of religious conservatives are going to be unhappy with Apple's removal of the app.
People like me (who think the app is absurd and are not religious conservatives) may not like the removal of a religious perspective even though we disagree with it (as long as the app doesn't violate any laws, advocate violence etc.)
IMVHO that's a ridiculous standard for a lifestyle app.
This is as much for social signaling reasons as anything else. For whatever reason, the medical industry is responsible for more spam and hucksterism than all other industries combined, so if you don't curate what people are providing then the entire app store loses it's value and credibility really fast.
And bye bye business books?
I think the app is absurd, but I think the call for apple to censor it is wrong.
I think its crap we don't have gay marriage, I think Exodus is laughable and a bad idea, but I think the idea they should be censored even worse.
When the government prohibits you from speaking, that's censorship.
When the New York Times decides to deliver some ideas over others, its not censorship. They own the printing press, they can use it for whatever they like.
The iOS platform has ads, crossword puzzles and a set of ideas. It has the same rights as anyone else to decide what its going to disseminate.
Freedom of the press rests on property rights, in this case the right to use your property to promote the values you choose.
It's completely the mentality of a lynch mob when you say "go get em boys, they did something we dislike" without stopping to say "Wait, should what they do be allowed? Could banning this have repercussions for other cases? Do I have the full story or just a filtered side of it".
The lynch mob is about the attempted boycott and press pressuring the press to pressure Apple to censor the app.
There's no lynch mob. A lynch mob decides to ignore due process of law and take the law into its own hands and carry out a sentence it thinks is justified.
In this case, the citizens are only doing what they are allowed to do.
just let (a significant number of) users report "potentially offensive apps" and make a category out of it. if the ratio is overwhelming then (users) ban the app.
It's pretty clear that nazism, racism, gaycism and other hateful applications shouldn't be allowed on the Apple App Store.
Yes, exactly. I'm not sure if that above statement was an attempt at sarcasm, but it's completely true, they shouldn't be allowed.
I'd still defend the right to call me stupid, to call all British people stupid (my country), and many other things. But some hatred goes too far over the line for me to not want to try and prevent.
I'm not particularly up on legal systems, but I believe that in both the US and the UK the law is with me, to an extent at least - while freedom of speech is promised, there are also laws against types of "hate speech"?
Plus, freedom of speech says that they should be able to have that opinion and to say that opinion, not that they have the right to have third parties promote that opinion. Extending that is why I had the right to complain to Apple, and, while their removing the app isn't exactly a case of "free speech", it is a case of them being able to chose what their company sells based on moral choices.
So it is with regard to free speech, and it's a thorny wicket. In a free marketplace of ideas, people are able to hear all viewpoints and select the most rational ones. Unfortunately, there are studies that seem to suggest that the repetition of a falsehood reinforces the ideas contained therein for at least some of the population. The best I can find quickly are "How Warnings About False Claims Become Recommendations: Paradoxical Effects of Warnings on Beliefs of Older Consumers"[1] and "Metacognitive Experiences and the Intricacies of Setting People Straight: Implications for Debiasing and Public Information Campaigns"[2]. (Look at the birther movement. There's an insane number of people in the U.S. who believe something to be true that is not only nonsensical but has been absolutely proven false. To many of these people, the means by which things were proven false has only reinforced their insane belief—and the more they repeat it, the more often they have a chance to convince others of their insanity being true, even though objectively it isn't.)
We know that words can wound deeply; look at the concerns over "cyber-bullying" and the reports of preteen suicides over some of those cases. As a parallel, it's illegal in every country with the concept of freedom of speech to incite a riot (even though the rioters are the ones causing the damage). As wlievens said, there's often direct consequences to hateful speech[3] that are deeply tragic.
Like corin_, I'm divided on this matter. I grew up American and emigrated to Canada as an adult. Canada has hate speech laws that can be fairly described as "prior restraint" and wouldn't pass muster in America. Those offend me as an American. But the level of discourse in Canada is, I think, better for such prior restraint. Obviously, one must be cautious in how one applies such things, but the improved discourse pleases me as a Canadian.
This is a long way to say: no, I don't think that free speech is more important than these other issues just because it's free speech. It's a complex problem without an easy hard-line solution that can be applied effectively. Because of the effects of repetition, sometimes the best way to stop hateful or stupid speech is to squelch it. And sometimes, it's the right thing to do.
[1] pdf: http://www.cerog.org/lalondeCB/CB/2005_lalonde_seminar/how_w... [2] pdf: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/norbert.schwarz/files/07_aep_schw... [3] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2358825