Google bans reddit client from Play Store for "sexually explicit material"
reddit.com
reddit.com
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3700731
The disappointment continues as well.
I never would have thought replacing Eric Schmidt as CEO was a bad thing, and I'm sure there are more factors at play here than just that, but I can trace my waning support of Google to a pretty specific time that happens to coincide with Page taking the CEO spot.
And if this keeps up, someone will just make an alternate market.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/apps/ (coming soon?)
My problem with this decision isn't that it makes it impossible for me to install this one app, but rather that it looks very much like the path towards where Apple is, where maybe I have to install a custom Cyanogenmod build on my Android phone just to have the option to install non-'Play' APKs (this isn't the situation now, but I can much more easily see this happening today than I could a year ago).
I find it very difficult to believe that Google will remove sideloading. Things have actually moved in the opposite direction. For example, after preventing sideloading for years, AT&T made the decision to enable it last May[0]. Apparently that was thanks to Amazon. So since there are already 2 dominant markets, I don't think it'll happen going forward.
Also, keep in mind that Google has a dominant position in the smartphone market, so such restrictions could draw interest from antitrust regulators.
0: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/05/att-sideload-android-...
Sure, not all Android devices require jail breaking, but some do.
I'd still rather support a company that kept that feature in because they believed in it rather than because they are afraid of what Amazon and/or the US/EU will do if they change it. Unfortunately, I'm less sure than ever that Google will do the open thing because it is the open thing and not because changing it to the closed thing would be too painful. And that sucks.
F-droid installer: https://f-droid.org/FDroid.apk
Web link to RIF http://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=reddit%20is%2...
* I'm currently using Diode which is a fork of the older RIF app.
That said, this is still an awful and draconian policy. I wouldn't have batted an eyelash if this was a news story coming from Apple's App Store, because that's just par for the course in their ecosystem. I love what Android used to stand for, but lately I'm finding it harder to stand by my principles, with Apple providing a very enticing walled garden that's getting harder to avoid.
We sell a Reddit image-browsing client on the iOS App Store (http://steamclocksw.com/prism/) and hit this in v1.0. We assumed that our 18+ rating for being able to browse to NSFW material meant we'd get some leeway, but we were initially rejected for including the "prettygirls" Reddit, which consists of fully clothed photos of adult women.
You've always been free to add specific NSFW subreddits that you know about after the fact. And NSFW links appearing on the frontpage is an occupational hazard, that quite possibly never happened during the App Store review process.
You could get to NSFW subreddits in the older version but had to know the name.
I understand what you are saying, but I believe the reasoning applies more directly to other markets (eg, slideme). I don't think that the Amazon App store exists due to restrictive Google policies, but rather due to Amazon's desires to directly enter this market (cf, Kindle Fire).
Also I was doing some research on the app creator and whats funny is it looks like a couple years ago google even sent the creator a free nexus one for making the first version of this app. lol.
Not at all: http://f-droid.org/
So you support Android only as far as they allow the undesired exposure of users to hardcore porn or shock imagery? That seems a very strange line to take.
This is not because I want to watch those things (although I do occasionally), but because otherwise it means I'm losing the freedom to do that. And first it's porn, but what's next? Political oppinions? Google's competition?
I'm so dissapointed.
[x] everyone
[x] low maturity
[x] medium maturity
[x] high maturity
[x] show all apps
With settings like that where the device owner can pick what they want to see why block anything.
>why block anything //
Presumably to retain users and keep inside the relevant laws.
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdid=com.andrewshu.and...
The thing about morals, though, is that everyone can have their own view. Taco Bell is open on Sundays. So is McDonalds, Burger King, and literally thousands of other restaurants. So why should I care that Chick-fil-a is closed?
No, I think this is about litigation. That's a lot more troubling because all companies (at least those based in the US) are subject to the same threats of litigation. Obviously, laws are based on morals, but ideally laws are based on the union of a population's morals, not the intersection.
This does not bode well for America.
I think that's an astute observation... probably not obvious to most people.
ideally laws are based on the union of a population's morals, not the intersection
Did you mean this the other way around? The union of my morals and those of Chick-fil-a would mean I can't work on Sunday. The intersection is probably more like, don't initiate force against others.
I mean, wouldn't a curated collection in "Play Store" (or whatever it's called) along with the option to download outside apps be the best of both worlds?
But no, I wouldn't consider that a "best" of the two worlds. Adult sites like reddit mix "clean" content and NSFW stuff all the time, and dumping them in an unsupported bin isn't likely to make anyone happy. If there's a curation step, there also needs to be a opt-in for people who don't mind the occasional nudity with their geek news.
This sounds like a fanboy-like purposed miscategorisation. Reddit links to hardcore pornography (and mirrors it in thumbnail form) and has until very recently carried Child pornography. It is also a hub for extreme NSFL shock imagery.
You can argue that someone should provide a repository for Android apps that allow access to such things but I don't think you can fairly expect any particular company to put their name to promotion of that sort of content. Any company that wishes to remain with an appearance of respectability would probably do well to keep a large distance between themselves and reddit (and probably 4chan from what I've heard but I'm not that familiar with it - I've visited a couple of times and what I found was relatively tame compared to what I've seen on reddit, YMMV).
>'reddit is fun banned for "sexually explicit material"'
That sounds like the correct analysis to me.
I guess that's true, because Reddit accepts and mirrors thumbnails from any image link posted. But that doesn't make it a "porn site" either. Lots of folks like me go there to read stuff like /r/askscience, which is about as good a pop science hub as any in print or web form anywhere in the world. You're saying you'd want to be censoring that forum because of stuff people do elsewhere on the site? You're not alone, but I suspect you'll find very few supporters for that opinion here.
And I think your information might be a little spun. When on earth did Reddit carry child pornography? Doing so is a crime pretty much anywhere, and I don't remember any FBI raids.
Nice and strawy. I never said that reddit was a "porn site"; probably because it isn't primarily (though there's observer bias, that's not how I use it shall we say). However subreddits do promote hardcore porn.
I didn't at any time say I was going to deny anyone access to, nor label as adult material, /r/askscience.
>And I think your information might be a little spun. //
I visited a "bestof" thread that linked to what is almost certainly categorised as child pornography in my jurisdiction (and in the US AFAICT under the Dost test) and FWIW reported the content of that subreddit to the IWF based on the thumbnails+titles (IWF is a UK watchdog, see https://www.iwf.org.uk/hotline/assessment-levels). There was a previous incident involving subreddits created by violentcrez (sp?) where the subreddit was closed by reddit as users were making offers and requests explicitly for images of an under-age girl.
See http://i.imgur.com/mWqlJ.png (NSFW, images there may be illegal in your country - they're copies of reddit thumbnails) for example and the thread I found that in http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/pj804/are_you_fucking_k... which started as a rather forceful apologia for paedophilic imagery.
And the strawman bit is I think missing the point. There's a real moral question about where to put the boundary between "protection from unwanted content" and inappropriate censorship ("friendly fire") of good content. Pointing out that reddit has lots of the latter is, I think, important and relevant to that discussion. Most sane people I know are more liberally tolerant if the relative benefit is higher.
So you're saying that Dost isn't a test used in US law to determine whether images are child pornography or not.
My point in referring to my report to IWF was that under their summary recapitulation of the Sentencing Guidelines Council's Definitive Guidelines of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 WRT such images I was convinced that this material was child pornography.
Are you saying that crotch shots of pre-teen girls entitled "juicy" or making reference to them as sexual objects is not child pornography or are you defending child pornography as something that should be allowed?
Were there actual children exploited on/through reddit. Yes.
>Most sane people I know are more liberally tolerant if the relative benefit is higher. //
Ah gotcha: So I'm insane because you feel that a few sexually exploited children should be perfectly fine as long as you get your fix of askscience in a ready Android app?
Wow. I hope you're trolling.
One of those images as a picture in a family album (assuming they've not been posed sexually) - not pornographic. Same image with sexualising content and presented alongside similar images in a forum intend to pander to the salacious nature of those who get aroused by sexualised images of children - pornographic.
Or do you think that there is no such thing as pornographic image of a human because you could see those same parts of the body in an anatomy book? If you do go that far, then presumably you'd also not find anything to be erotic? Would you also say that intent is not important?
1. I think it's bad and I'm not 'fine with it'.
BUT
2. I think it's not an 'image of a rapist' because context can't change an image.
* assuming it is CP, as you claimed
They show people blowing their head off with a gun in the afternoon news while children are watching, but omg, a boob or even worse a nipple they go crazy!
This ban has to be taken back, or all other means to browse reddit must be banned as well, including all google browsers, etc. I see a lawsuit coming otherwise.
I don't understand your reasoning here. When a store decides to not devote shelf space to an item, they are in no way trying to prevent you from going to another store that carries it. My local grocer does not carry tomatillos, but they're not going to sue me if I get them elsewhere.
Let me make it worse: You're the only store around for miles and miles and people really just buy what you've got in stock. Sure, they could order online or grow something in their backyards. Maybe there's this obscure and small outlet for some of the missing things from your inventory, but most customers don't know the place.
But you just decided to remove meat from your store now. You consider eating meat distasteful and barbaric and really want to have nothing to do with that sort of stuff.
In my book you'd be
- abusive in your position as a quasi-monopoly
- an asshole by forcing your morale standards on others
I think that's a good point the GP makes. I don't give a damn what the weirdo moral limits are in the US. They are totally insane if you have my upbringing.
If you want to police the market, add proper age restrictions. Or use this braindead misfeature of regional support and don't allow apps like this in the US (now that would be a change, eh?).
> they're not going to sue me if I get them elsewhere.
I was watching a very violent move, late at night, on a cable channel. All kinds of violence - no problem.
Suddenly an inured woman is being given first aid, in the process one nipple falls out of her shirt briefly - GIANT blur.
The root causes for this pro-violence/anti-sex culture could be interesting for sociology researches.
Do you actually think this is a true statement about the US?
That incident alone doesn't mean that this is happening often, because it isn't. Violence is shown on US television all the time, but it is almost always of the fictional variety.
And does that distinction make it ok?
Death is just as natural as sex. Arguably more so - everything dies, and nature seems to have no aversions to violent death. Why would fictional death bother you?
I have no hard statistics to back up either side, though.
Also, there is a difference between acknowledging that unpleasant things happen sometimes, and making it look standard, routine or even glorifying it, and arguably many TV and Movie productions cross that line.
(& Don't assume I want it banned - I never said that.)
No credible study has ever really been done that links violent media with violent behavior.
I'd rather live in a free society that deals with fake violence in media but does not tolerate it in real life than one that does the opposite, of course, but I never see the point of this 'sex vs. violence in media' thing, because they really aren't equivalent and allowing one but not the other really isn't 'hypocrisy', it's just a difference in cultural norms.
I find it a bit shocking that it took 44 minutes from the 911 call to the detonation and yet apparently TV crews got there in time to broadcast it (not just record it presumably; so outside broadcast van and patching through to live TV). USA is truly a media marvel.
Instead of making the choice to crack down on sexual content I wish they would instead focus on getting ICS onto more handsets, cracking down on carriers / manufactures modifying device OS, and bouncing malware apps.
It is? One of the biggest complaints about the Android Market by many Android advocates is that it is too much of a Wild West, and that it very strongly needs more control.
There is a medium somewhere between no control and complete control that is a nice mix, especially if you have to option of opting out of the control structure if you don't want it: If you want what the market doesn't have you are totally free to install any number of alternative markets, if not installing directly from third parties.
And it goes direct to my notification bar. talk about direct linking