There has been a recent dustup over Apple’s hypocritical enforcement of Helen Lovejoy style censorship at the App Store. (For those who don’t lust after every swanky piece of technology that comes in rounded plastic, the App Store is how Apple distributes little software programs for iPhones and the like.) Basically anything even the least bit sexual recently got banned, with the exception of sexual stuff from “well-known” companies like Playboy and Sports Illustrated (it’s the Swimsuit Issue time of year).
This produced well founded accusations of hypocrisy and corporate favoritism. Apple was applying a very obvious double standard: if you’re a big company known for women in bikinis you’re A-OK. If you’re some programmer who creates an app that involves women in bikinis you’re banned. End of story.
What this means in practice is that Apple has quite willingly involved itself in a censorship problem that up until now private businesses have been more than happy to foist off on government. The appetite of the general public for pictures of hot chicks (in all their forms) is basically unquenchable. Yet polite society, of both the white gloved genteel stripe and the 21st century empowered women variety, finds these things uncouth. It is a thankless task to be the ones who select what gets allowed and what doesn’t precisely because it is logically impossible to formulate a coherent policy of what does and does not cross the line. The process is inevitably selective and arbitrary and that leads to a lot of criticism, especially from tech people who are opposed to such things on principle.
But the bigger hypocrisy here isn’t even related to what does or does not offend traditional morality or the dignity of women. As MG Siegler of TechCrunch pointed out right in his headline: “Apple, There’s Pornography On My iPhone. The App Is Called Safari.” iPhones, iPads and all the rest are designed to access the regular old internet where images (and more) of people with just the tiniest scraps of clothing are considered tame. So let’s not kid ourselves, keeping porn (or just swimsuit models) off of those clean, sexily asexual devices isn’t the point.
The real reason Apple pulled the plug on small time smut is that it’s embarrassing. Apple is one of the most respected brands in the world and to be associated in any way with silly little apps that get guys to titter is beneath them. Which is not to say that large, respectable corporations shy away from profiting off of sex. Television and movies will go out of their way to get actors and actresses in their skivvies or less, hotel chains rake in big bucks from in room porn, and virtually any product you can think of has been sold with ads that use overtly sexual ideas or imagery. But those things (even the in-room porn by virtue of being discreet) are all more respectable than an app called “Asian Boobs”.
That’s why Sports Illustrated and even Playboy get to stay, it’s not that they’re “well-known”, it’s that they’re respectable. They’ve been immunized (for a variety of reasons) from the taint of for profit sex and that means Apple can be associated with them at no cost to its immeasurably valuable brand. And it’s not as though Apple needs the piddling amount of revenue it gets from these things.
This hypocrisy on Apple’s part shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, and it’s probably not even worth condemning. The only thing they’re abandoning is the anything goes ethos of the internet, but, contrary to their free spirited marketing, they’ve always been one of the more restrictive technology firms (ask anyone who’s ever tried to get music in or out of iTunes). They want to be the more policed technology platform and while that pisses off a lot of people who see a double standard, in the end Apple is big enough to do whatever it wants.
