Worthless iPhone 'Wikileaks App' removed from Apple Store
Many fools bought it first, though
An iOS app designed to provide access to Wikileaks has been removed from the Apple App Store.
"Wikileaks App" was a paid app ($1.99) which did nothing more than present the Wikileaks Twitter feed and website – both of which can of course still be seen by iDevice users with sufficient energy to activate their browser and/or Twitter platform of choice, RSS app etc.
The app was pulled just three days after being launched on 17 December. Thus far Apple have offered no comment on the decision: "Wikileaks App" may have been pulled either to distance Apple from Wikileaks, or simply for being worthless.
Despite the fact that it was nothing more than a single-site scraper, "Wikileaks App" appears to have netted its creator a tidy little sum before being shut down. There is no indication that any of the money will go to Wikileaks, or to Bradley Manning – the junior US soldier who allegedly supplied the site with almost everything of interest it has ever published. ®
COMMENTS
Hmmm
Look, there is certainly a role for a whistleblowing site and so on but it seems to me that there is not, a priori, something pious or beneficial about releasing any and all information. If someone put about your credit card details and PIN, would you applaud the transparency, for example?
Everything I've read from the dump of diplomatic cables might be titilating but I've seen nothing that would fall under what I would call whistleblowing and much of it is clearly damaging in some way or another.
In the wider sense, diplomacy is clearly best conducted with tact, delicacy and the frank exchange of information between diplomats on site and their bosses back at home. In the narrower sense, from what I understand certain sources in very unsympathetic countries have basically been outed by this information. This puts them at risk of personal reprisals and surely reduces the likelihood that people will provide information to the US in the future. Does this strike you as a good thing?
It seems to me that the only major indictment of the US that has come out of these cables is that they could be so widely accessed and so easily leaked in the first place. That does not justify publication.
It may be entertaining to read this stuff and, if you have a reflexive dislike of America, it may be fun to see their diplomats squirm, but really, what good has been done with the release? This isn't empty, childish rhetoric. This is real world, grown-up consideration of the value in what wikileaks has done. Fun != justification for releasing information. We might all like to know what is going on behind the scenes but any mature individual knows that some things are keep secret for a reason.
This title has been redacted
Eh?
Whatever your view on the rights or wrongs of AssangeGate, it seems perfectly reasonable of Apple to remove an app that simply took money from gullible souls to direct them to a public URL that they could already reach via Safari.
How do you see that as a "relentless assault etc, etc"?
@down with wikileaks!
I think you may have missed the point of this article. Far be it for me a Wikileaks critic to point this out, but I think the article describes the Iphone app as worthless and doesn't really pass comment on Wikileaks itself.
Lemme see if I get this right ...
... free speech is "surpressed" [sic] when other people use THEIR right to free speech?
Damn interesting definition you got there, grasshopper. Don't think anyone ever said that using your right to speak your opinion would lead to folks NOT laughing at you.
If Wikileaks = Assange then Wikileaks = Doomed
People need to separate Wikileaks from the Assange Cult of Personality. Charging Assange with rape under Sweden's wacky laws is not the same as denigrating Wikileaks. Wikileaks has brought a great deal to light that should be out in the light. Assange is merely an egomaniac.
