Rebel Flag Iphone Wallpaper +picture
Apple has now abutting a host of merchants in removing the Confederate banderole from its belvedere – in its case, the iTunes App Store. Several app developers are now advertisement that their Civil War games, which featured adumbration of the banderole as allotment of their game’s actual context, accept been pulled from the App Store.
Apple’s move to ban these amateur follows agnate decisions by a cardinal of aloft retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Sears and others, which all appear bans on the auction of Confederate banderole commodity in the deathwatch of the cutting deaths of nine atramentous aggregation at a abbey in Charleston, S.C., this month.
The games’ abatement was aboriginal appear by industry blog TouchArcade. TechCrunch has accomplished out to Apple for comment, but the aggregation has not responded.
UPDATE #1 – 6/25, 4 PM ET: Apple has now commented on the matter, saying:
“We accept removed apps from the App Store that use the Confederate banderole in abhorrent or chicken ways, which is in abuse of our guidelines. We are not removing apps that affectation the Confederate banderole for educational or actual uses.”
UPDATE #2 – 6/25, 5 PM ET: We’ve announced to Apple added abundantly about the removals now. The aggregation says it’s alive with developers to bound get their amateur reinstated to the App Store.
It seems like the removals were not a absolute ban on use of the Confederate banderole adumbration in App Store apps. And there may accept been titles that shouldn’t accept been pulled because the use of the banderole could be brash “historical” or “educational,” as per Apple’s animadversion above. Apple’s ambition is not to lose amateur from the App Store, but rather abolish those titles that could offend. That means there will be some apps that are not acceptable to be reinstated, such as the banned Confederate banderole wallpaper app, for example.
Original column continues beneath –
Currently, afflicted titles include Ultimate General: Gettysburg; several Hunted Cow/HexWar Games Civil War games; and more. The ban has additionally afflicted baddest apps, like “Southern Pride (Rebel Flag) Wallpaper,” it’s been noted.
According to at atomic one bold developer Touch Arcade batten with, their game was removed because it contained “images of the Confederate banderole acclimated in abhorrent and chicken ways.” We’ve accepted with others that this is the accent Apple is application back referencing the removals.
Many developers altercate that their amateur aren’t meant to be offensive, but rather accommodate the banderole adumbration because of its actual context. Maxim Zasov of Bold Labs, which publishes Ultimate General: Gettysburg, told Touch Arcade that agents accept acclimated his bold back teaching the Civil War in the classroom.
Adds Hunted Cow/HexWar Amateur administrator Andrew Mulholland, “it seems black that [Apple] would abolish [the games] as they weren’t actuality acclimated in an abhorrent way, actuality that they were actual war amateur and appropriately it was the banderole acclimated at the time.”
Elsewhere on Reddit, an bearding developer additionally letters that 14 titles from a bold flat they assignment with accept been removed.
It’s cryptic what belief Apple is application to actuate whether it pulls an app featuring the Confederate banderole imagery. But Mulholland tells us that Apple contacted his aggregation afterwards affairs several of its titles, and pointed to area 19.1 of the App Store Review Guidelines in its email. This area states:
“Apps absolute references or annotation about a religious, cultural or indigenous accumulation that are defamatory, offensive, chicken or acceptable to betrayal the targeted accumulation to abuse or abandon will be rejected.”
The aggregation brash HexWar (which grew out of a accord amid Hunted Cow and the aboriginal HexWar), to “review its app abstraction and absorb altered agreeable and appearance that are in acquiescence the guidelines.” The aggregation offers several Civil War-themed amateur which accept been banned, including Civil War: 1862, Civil War: 1863, Civil War: 1864 and Civil War: Gettysburg. The oldest game, Civil War: 1863, has been alive on the App Store back September 2012.
Hunted Cow/HexWar says they will now try resubmitting its titles application a lesser-known 1861 adaptation of the banderole to see if their amateur will be approved.
The Apple bannings don’t seem to be universal, however. Ars Technica credibility out there are added titles that accommodate the angel of the banderole that are still alive on the App Store, like The Battle of Antietam and The History Channel’s The Civil War Today. Plus, Apple continues to advertise added media that showcases the Confederate flag, including albums and TV shows like Primal Scream’s Give Out But Don’t Give Up, Legend by Lynyrd Skynyrd and seven seasons of Dukes of Hazzard, as The Guardian notes.
In addition, The Guardian additionally remarks that Apple’s accommodation to accomplish the Confederate banderole ban contradicts how it handles added abhorrent materials, like the Nazi flag. Several titles (including those that don’t affirmation actual accuracy) that feature this banderole abide available.
The question, apparently, is area does Apple draw the band with attention to the abatement of the Confederate flag, or any abhorrent flag, from its storefront?
Apple CEO Tim Cook afresh tweeted his abutment for measures that absorb removing the symbols of racism, so it’s not absolutely hasty to see the aggregation booty this step.
