Tim Cook takes Apple down the dark road of censorship

CiO Magazine ^ | Jun 25, 2015 10:47 AM PT | By Jim Lynch

[Swordmaker]

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the difficulties Apple would face if it tried to censor the Confederate flag in its online stores. Unfortunately, the company - under Tim Cook's leadership - wasted no time in engaging in reactionary censorship of the Confederate flag in its app store.

Touch Arcade and other sites are reporting that Apple has begun a ham-handed purge of the app store. The company has removed games and apps that include the Confederate flag:

It's looking like Apple has pulled everything from the App Store that features a Confederate flag, regardless of context. The reasoning Apple is sending developers is "...because it includes images of the confederate flag used in offensive and mean-spirited ways."

We just received a statement from Maxim Zasov of Game Labs, the developers of Ultimate General: Gettysburg. It is as follows:

We accept Apple's decision and understand that this is a sensitive issue for the American Nation. We wanted our game to be the most accurate, historical, playable reference of the Battle of Gettysburg. All historical commanders, unit composition and weaponry, key geographical locations to the smallest streams or farms are recreated in our game's battlefield.

We receive a lot of letters of gratitude from American teachers who use our game in history curriculum to let kids experience one of the most important battles in American history from the Commander's perspective.

Spielberg’s "Schindler's List" did not try to amend his movie to look more comfortable. The historical "Gettysburg" movie (1993) is still on iTunes. We believe that all historical art forms: books, movies, or games such as ours, help to learn and understand history, depicting events as they were. True stories are more important to us than money.

Therefore we are not going to amend the game's content and Ultimate General: Gettysburg will no longer be available on AppStore. We really hope that Apple’s decision will achieve the desired results. We can’t change history, but we can change the future.>[?

Ultimate General: Gettysburg wasn't alone in focusing on tasteful, historical accuracy. The vast majority of the Civil War strategy games I've played on my iPad put massive amounts of emphasis on focusing on the historical significance of the battles, units, locations, and generals included. We've also heard that these types of games have been used as teaching tools, making their removal from the App Store feel that much more reactionary. — More at Touch Arcade.

Apple's Orwellian censorship of the Confederate flag is a big mistake

While I suspected something like this would happen, it still shocked me to find out that Apple would engage in this kind of overt censorship of history. The company appears to have made no distinction for apps that are educational in nature and that have proven to assist teachers in educating students about the Civil War.

I think this is a terrible mistake on Apple's part. It demonstrates short-term, reactionary thinking and casts a deep chill of heavy-handed censorship over Apple's app store. This is one of those situations where the solution ends up being far worse than the problem.

I suspect that Apple is probably going to face a consumer and possibly a developer backlash against this kind of censorship. If you care to share your thoughts with Apple, you can send Tim Cook an email. I doubt it will do much good, but at least he'll know that some folks don't support this kind of censorship of history by Apple.

Currently you can still buy the Dukes of Hazzard in the iTunes store. But how long until Apple removes it because of the Confederate flag? Will the iTunes and iBooks stores be censored next by Apple?

I'm wondering now if the iBooks store will be hit next by a mass purge of Confederate flags by Apple? It will be interesting to see if books that use the Confederate flag on their cover or that include it as an image will suddenly start disappearing from the iBooks store.

And let's not forget about the iTunes store. Currently you can get every season of the Dukes of Hazzard in the iTunes store. But how long until Apple begins a mass purge of television shows and movies that contain Confederate flags? If Apple is going to be consistent in its censorship then there's no way it can allow such material to be sold in its iTunes store.

And what about the films or TV shows that might contain content that Apple deems to be "too sympathetic" to the Confederacy? Will the company remove them too even if they don't contain images of the Confederate flag? We'll have to wait and see, but I'm not optimistic about Apple being able to control its authoritarian impulses.

Tim Cook is taking Apple down a dark and dangerous road

I think that Tim Cook has let his personal politics get the better of his judgement, and he has sent Apple spinning down into the abyss of intellectual censorship. Purging the app store of the Confederate flag may unfortunately be just the beginning of a dark period of political madness in Apple's history.

I very much hope I'm wrong about that, but Apple's heavy-handed censorship of the Confederate flag doesn't give me much confidence in the company's future commitment to intellectual freedom and historical accuracy. It may fall to Apple's board of directors to intervene and correct the company's overzealous efforts to censor what its customers can see and buy.

Apple is indeed going down a very dangerous and scary road. Where will it end?

[Swordmaker]

Tim Cook takes Apple down the dark road of censorship. This is exactly true. . . and depressing. This is what Liberals do when given power. Sad. — PING!

Apple Stupid PC Censorship Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[Mark17]

I very much hope I'm wrong about that, but Apple's heavy-handed censorship of the Confederate flag doesn't give me much confidence in the company's future commitment to intellectual freedom and historical accuracy.

I hope they wake up too, but we shall see. If it hits them in the bottom line, they might.

[Hugin]

Never owned an Apple anything, never will.

[lefty-lie-spy]

What an arsehole move on Apple’s part. What IS the point. There is something going on here much bigger than a Confederate Flag manufactured hysteria. What is it?

[lefty-lie-spy]

Yeah, unbelievably stupid move on their part. Its almost as if someone in Washington is telling that commie fag what to do. I think the whole thing is manufactured. But a company doing something this rash and stupid, is just mind boggling.

[GeronL]

Anyone know how to make backgrounds actually work on Blender 3-d. I want to make a story cover with that flag on the side of a space ship.

[Talisker]

You can’t forget that Jobs was close friends with Bill and Hillary. Cook isn’t falling very far from that tree - in fact, he’s right under it.

The extreme discrepancy between the excellence of of Apple products and their hyper-liberal politics has bothered me for a long time, especially when they try to blend the two together. But this latest act is literally a Soviet-level erasing of American history - and scary as hell. I hope their feedback is negative enough, and large enough, to force a reversal. But these days... I doubt it. Liberals have become VERY communistic and obedient to their masters.

[jwalsh07]

It won’t hurt Apple at all. I doubt there are two people here at FR who will change their buying habits just because Apple is rife with plutocrats censoring that which they do not like. Same for Amazon, Ebay and WalMart. There are very, very few people who will divest from those assholes either. Which is exactly why they do this sh&t.

[I still care]

It’s Fahrenheit 451 coming.

Here’s a post I wrote earlier tonight, with quotes from the book - a lot of these dystopian novels will never happen, but this one IS coming.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3304369/posts?page=24#24

[Paulie]

“There is something going on here much bigger than a Confederate Flag manufactured hysteria. What is it?”

The way I see it is that it’s been decided that it’s high time for the NWO to make its debut. The only real impediment to this happening is the viability of the US Dollar and America herself.

The dollar is poised to collapse at any time. What we’re seeing now is the wholesale liquidation of the United States - culturally, economically, militarily. When we’re weakened enough, it’ll be one short step to being like any other dictatorial country.

[lefty-lie-spy]

Apple still makes the products that I like. I won’t change to some other crappy operating system or telephone just because of this.

[Mark17]

There is something going on here much bigger than a Confederate Flag manufactured hysteria. What is it?

Just a purely political move among the professional racists, to continue the narrative that we are all a bunch of racists, and to energize minority voters.

[jwalsh07]

I know. You wouldn’t abandon Apple if they sent a preponderance f their manufacturing to Communist China, began censoring anything reminiscent of southern heritage and demanded florists who wish not to participate in gay ceremonies by expressing their first amendment rights be jailed, scorned and sent to the poorhouse. It’s because you are a “true conservative”!

[Salamander]

I’d dump my husband if he forbade me to have one.

[Jonty30]

I think it is a fair assessment to guess that any company that moved this quickly probably got the same phone call or email that Amazon admitted to getting, ordering it to desist in carrying the product.

[Cowboy Bob]

How are liberals different from the Taliban and Communists? They have all sought to erase the past.

[wardaddy]

I’m proud of you

Hugs

[wardaddy]

We’d already eschewed Amazon

I liked eBay

As you may know I’ve got property association deals ...car washes...with two WalMarts so while I can avoid WalMart it’s tough to cut them off completely

I went to Sams to avoid lib Costco...

My family has a lot of Apple and I’m on one now....it could be done....I’m not married to them but my kids are

It’s just crazy how southern history was fine the day before a crazy kid murders but now we are all blamed and called nazis....instantly

A great example of mob rule and how wars ignite

The left....Tim Cook etc ....like good Alinsky progressives.....took this opportunity to carry forth their agenda

WalMart is now run by libs....look at mgt

Cook is governed by feeling oppressed as a gay man...prolly picked on in Alabama or wherever it was down here growing up

He’s got no love loss for Dixie

Worst part of this to me is the feckless GOP....especially those in the south

[Original Lurker]

Ditto!

My former employer furnish me with an iphone.
After being “downsized” my person phone is an LG.

Apple Inc. seems a bit “Jim Jones-ish” (read: cultish) to me.