Censorship is wrong

What I find sad about this is that Apple is actually using the App store to push American / Christian values to the detriment of its international customers. Usually Americans are easily shocked by sexual content, but tolerate large amounts of violence. Europeans usually have a much higher tolerance for sexual content but are less tolerant of excessive violence. What is happening here is Apple going the "American way": removing content that shocks in the US but that people outside of the US would not only find acceptable but probably desirable.

Why stop there: let's remove violent games that could shock Europeans, let's remove all the software that may shock various culture and religions. Restaurant games that feature cow made hamburgers: how shocking this must be to Hindu people? They make ham sandwiches too? well, that is going to shock the Muslims! Lets remove content that make reference to God so that we don't anger the atheist! And lets not speak of the effect the games where the objective is to earn huge amounts of money will have when the iPhone reach the few remaining communist countries... This can very quickly become ridiculous :-)

My opinion is that Apple should NOT ban content from the app store (except for content that is clearly illegal) because the standards of what is deemed acceptable content vary so much from one country to the other and from one person to the other that the censorship or the content will almost always be considered inappropriate somewhere by someone. It is impossible for Apple to actually make a good decision, so it is better if they make no decision.

We live in a big, multicultural world. The only way to make it work is for everyone to accept that some content that they find shocking will exist and be available because to someone else, somewhere else, that content is acceptable and desirable. From the moment one culture / country start to impose its views on the others it will stop working. I am an Atheist, but I don't care if there are Bible readers in the app store, I just don't download them. I don't like excessive violence, but I don't care if there are violent shooters in the app store, I just don't download them. What I DO care about is if someone tells me that I can't download the content I like.

This is just silly

I'm sure its very Laudable that Apple wants to protect the moral fibre of its users, but they are going further and further up silly street with stuff. I'm an iPhone user, and I'm embarrassed that Apple now appears to be treating me like a child; enforcing its own mores on my telephone usage.

Not that I'd buy this app. It seems a bit puerile. But that's for ME to decide. Are you listening Apple?

Of course not.

.. which is why I'm waiting for the Android tablet, rather than buying an iPad.

Puritanical censorship...?

... There's an app for that!