Media Detector, a New York Times blog, has a post today (6/14/10) about a comic book adaptation of James Joyce’s Ulysses that Apple is insisting be bowdlerized before it can be turned into an app for the iPad–replacing an image of a bare-breasted “milk lady” with a close-up of her face. While calling Apple‘s decision “disappointing,” artist Robert Berry told Media Detector he
did not feel “remotely censored by Apple.” “It’s their rules,” he said. “We’re coming to their dinner party at their house.”
When you watch TV on your Sony television, you’re not attending a dinner party at Sony‘s house, at which Sony gets to set the rules. Nor, when you surf the Web on your IBM PC, are you IBM‘s guests, subject to whatever arbitrary choices IBM wants to make about what you can and cannot see.
If the iPad does become one of the main ways by which people access information and art, as Apple surely hopes, and Apple is able to treat that medium as a private preserve in which free speech rules do not apply, this will distinguish the iPad as a technological advance that is also a democratic retreat.
That quote was repulsive. What a snivelling little slave.
Although, even at allegedly progressive internet forums, where the site’s stated purpose is to develop an online participatory community, and where therefore according to the site’s premise proprietors would have some democratic responsibilities and members would have some community rights, whenever any issue of censorship comes up you’ll often see many flunkey members themselves parroting the toxic corporate line that “the site is private property and the owner can do whatever he wants with his property.”
This will happen on sites where in principle the “community” is opposed to corporatism, propertarianism, anarcho-capitalism and such. Clearly in many cases the brainwashing runs deep while the idealism is shallow.
It’s a freaking app â┚¬” get a grip on yourself.
You can do ANYTHING, read ANYTHING, watch ANYTHING on a Mac desktop, notebook or iPad. Apps are for timid souls who need their hands held while they surf. Apps bring you information you could have gotten in countless other ways.
Robert Berry clearly understands this. The app promotes his work, and his work can be viewed in full on any Macintosh product (except screenless iPods).
I don’t know why this is such a prevalent meme because it’s utterly false. Apps are apps. They have nothing to do with whether you can watch content or not.
You are making false equivalences.
“When you watch TV on your Sony television…” only a fool would think he’s watching uncensored content. If the network does not pre-censor according to FCC rules, they can expect to be fined. The FCC doesn’t like particular words and they don’t allow porn over-the-air unencrypted, and this is nothing new.
When you watch “the news” on your TV, do you think that’s not already censored and massaged by their corporate owners, uninfluenced by their own corporate ideology? Go check “Project Censored” for a taste of all the self-censorship already going on in mainstream media.
“Nor, when you surf the Web on your IBM PC, are you IBM’s guests….” You can reach those very same web sites from your iPhone and iPad, uncensored. It’s not about web content, it’s about applications hosted on Apple’s App store.
Steve Jobs has already been quoted saying something to the effect of: “If you want porn, buy an Android.” So if you consider porn free speech, you have your solution.
Apple seems to have concluded they don’t want to divide the store up into G, PG-13, NC-17, X-rated, XXX with a cherry on top compartments. It’s probably expensive to do so, and I’d guess there’s some liability involved if someone makes a mistake. They’re not saying you can’t have that content, only that they’re not going to sell it to you.
In any event, cartoon titties are not necessarily free speech in the same way that money is not considered free speech by many–the Supreme’s and their twisted ideology aside.
Seriously, are we bemoaning the lack of cartoon titties as a democratic retreat? Where is the information lost in those missing titties? Where is the knowledge lost in that information? Even the author didn’t see it as censorship.
I would be surprised if the iPad becomes one of the main ways by which people access art. But if it does, I very much doubt anyone will be censoring Michaelangelo’s David or the Venus de Milo.
Bad analogy. The “guests at the party” thing applies to CONSUMERS, not content PROVIDERS. If you’re catering the party, whichis much closer to Barry’s position, you damn well ought to make sure the food is to the host’s liking.
That said, Barry could have hinted at the nudity, etc. without actually showing it. It takes a bit of skill to do that and still maintain composition and narrative, but presumably that’s why he’s getting the big bucks from Apple.
Apple makes it extremely clear that they have two options for developers who want to publish their content on iOS devices (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad). There’s the curated option, which requires approval from Apple. There’s also the HTML5 option, which is as open as the web. For example, HTML5 is the primary option used by pornographers to publish and monetize their content on the iPad.
http://developer.apple.com/safari/
I am sorry, but I think you see an issue where there is none. “The iPad as a technological advance that is also a democratic retreat.”….??? You really need to smoke something different.
> this will distinguish the iPad as a technological advance that is also a democratic retreat.
Like most (if not all) commercial products, the iPad is not a technological advance – it is at best an innovative product.
That point aside, many technological advances (and innovative products) result in democratic retreats. Weapons technology certainly often results in democratic retreats, but so do many innovations in manufacturing and automation.
The idea that technological progress tends to result in social progress is part of right-wing mythology.
The broadside by the Apple fans is amusing. Despite contradictory interpretations of Apple’s policy on pornography (“go to Android” vs. “available through HTML5”), for example, all find Apple’s policy justified.
The “you watch what we approve of” message has been oddly absent from Apple’s advertising campaign.
So, what about art? What about those glorious nudes of Michelangelo, Rubens, and all the rest? Apple gonna put fig leaves on those, too?
I normally support most of FAIR’s positions and act on most Alerts. But in this case FAIR is flat out wrong. Anyone can access anything they want on a Mac, an iPhone, iPod, or iPad by simply using the web browser. Apple’s position regarding “apps” is that they believe they have an obligation to ensure that these applications meet certain technical and content standards. Just like my local 24-hour store with the “mens” or adult magazines tucked into a back corner with a piece of wood covering everything except the name, it is Apple’s right to put in their store whatever they want. I might not always like or agree with their choices, but it is their right and has no impact on my ability to read view or use whatever I want on the internet.
Sorition is also wrong in stating that “you watch what we approve of” is Apple’s position. Apple’s position is that they can decide what is sold through their store. If the author of the particular app wants to be sure that a “true to vision” version is available to consumers, all he has to do is put it on the web, and then I will be able to access it.
This whole argument is a bit like telling Ford: “Sorry, you will also have to stock Toyotas in the showroom.” Or telling Dick’s Sporting Goods that they have to start selling Bridal Gowns!
All this concern about privacy and censorship is pretty silly, seems to me.
Remember that the Framers only mentioned Freedom of the Press, and Speech. They said nothing about iPads, the Internet, iPods, Schmardt Phones, — or radio, tv, cable, satellite & microwave/cellular, for that matter.
(That’s the danger if making lists–you just may forget to put something important on the list.
(What? Did you say “Ninth Amendment”? That “inkblot”, you mean?)
And anything we do digitally is already tapped by NSA, according to James Bamford’s Shadow Factory. Has been since Q1, 2002 (those “splitter boxes.”
Bamford wrote that all the bits are piped along to a huge disk farm in Tejas (Maybe on Bush’s ol’ western movie set (didja ever notice that there was never a single smudge of dirt on Shrub’s “work gloves” when he was out “clearing the brush”?) And he’s never occurred for me as any kind of renal retentive. To you? Odd.
Jesse Ventura, in American Conspiracies, claims that ever bit of our bits go to the NSA in Langley or whatever hardly disclosed until Dana Priest’s piece in WaPo it is they’re located. Split the diff? Maybe it’s in the back lots at Graceland, Goin’ to Graceland, Graceland, Tennessee.
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