{"id":107,"date":"2019-05-06T14:35:29","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T13:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roughsex.org\/notes\/?p=107"},"modified":"2019-05-06T15:04:21","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T14:04:21","slug":"california-taliban-double-standards-in-apples-app-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roughsex.org\/notes\/index.php\/2019\/05\/06\/california-taliban-double-standards-in-apples-app-store\/","title":{"rendered":"California Taliban – Double standards in Apple’s App Store"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We are, as many others have commented, slowly walking into a future where what we can see, read, or do online is controlled by a relatively small number of companies, like Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Governments, fearful of being seen to censor directly, bring pressure on Silicon Valley companies to \u201cprotect users\u201d or \u201cclean up\u201d discussions. And so Twitter bans some people, Tumblr becomes less pornographic, and so on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To an extent, this is the right of those companies – they operate the platforms, they\u2019re businesses, and they can do what they want. But as they do so, the ramifications spread far and wide.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nebulous \u201ccommunity standards\u201d somehow allow Gay Conversion apps to end up on stores, or an app that Saudi men can use to track their wives and make sure they don\u2019t travel without permission. Videos on YouTube that deal with safer sex end up being \u201cde-monetised,\u201d cutting off vital streams of funding for their creators. Policies like Facebook\u2019s \u201cReal Name\u201d rule endanger LGBT people, women fleeing from violence and others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, these companies are entitled to have their policies – but we are entitled to ask if they\u2019re the right ones, if they are being applied fairly, and if it is reasonable that there is no oversight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A word about BLUF<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I run BLUF, the Breeches and Leather Uniform Fanclub; it\u2019s for men who have an interest in leather uniforms, though it\u2019s more social than about hook-ups – we have over 150 meetings around the world each year. We don’t allow nudity or sexually explicit photos on the website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, after adding a few tweaks, we were able to get our app, BLUF Navigator, into Apple\u2019s App Store. (Principally, we had to add blocking and reporting tools, and a method to display and accept an EULA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I honestly didn\u2019t expect any problems with our second app, BLUF Calendar. This is an app that takes data about the events we and other groups host, and syncs it on your device, allowing you to browse offline. You can highlight events, add them directly to your calendar, and share them via social media – it even reformats posters into a square frame for sharing on Instagram. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check out our calendar<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The whole calendar is publicly visible on the website at bluf.com\/events<\/a> and I honestly don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything too racy in there. Though, I was quite willing to accept that, as standards seem to be rather more puritan in America than elsewhere, we might need to do things like provide a way for certain posters to be hidden from app users, and maybe edit the information about some events. Nothing insurmountable, I imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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