Apple: The Scarlet Letter Of Removal

The other day, Apple removed a long-time app citing anonymous complaints. In case you haven’t heard, the SuicideGirls app was removed.  Left in the App Store were SI’s Swimsuit 2010 and Playboy – which are both featured in the top download lists.  Also in the store are “Your Face On PENTHOUSE”, several apps featuring sexual positions allegedly based on the Kama Sutra, and another several games that are “sex position games”.  The “Kama Sutra” apps and sex positions games can be found by simply typing “sex” into the iTMS search window.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that the SuicideGirls podcast is still available for download, as is the “Seduce A Suicide Girl” app.  And once again, no one knows exactly what goes on in Apple’s app removal process.  Apple has stated that the app was removed because it was exploitative of women.  It’s not.  Not in the least.

Found in part by “Missy Suicide”, it is a site founded by women, run by women, which celebrates the female form outside of normal conventions.  Dubbed by some as “art sleaze” (because of the piercing and tattoos), the women of SuicideGirls are, from my vantage point as an American heterosexual 35 year-old male with a healthy libido, extremely attractive.  Notably, many fall outside of the “norm”, with interests in science-fiction, horror, comic books, action movies, or sports.  I put “norm” in quotes because, in spite of this being the year 2010, women who have a passion for any of the above are seen as, at best, tomboyish, and at worst, morbid goths.

Apple’s actions are, in a word, irresponsible.  Whereas Apple has sought to become the dominant force in mobile content distribution and is the main conduit for that distribution, it has a moral obligation to keep open those channels so as to permit the free flow of ideas.  Apple has proven itself to be either unable or unwilling to safeguard the core principles underlying the First Amendment and upon this nation was founded.

Apple has put parental controls onto the iPhone and iTouch.  And yet, when it received these anonymous complaints, it did not refer the allegedly offended parties to those

controls.  Just as a parent is free to change the channel on television, that parent is free to block content on the $300 toy that they have bought to shut their spawn up.

One of Apple's "Think Different" ads, featuring the Dalai Lama

Over the past quarter century, Apple has painted itself as a champion of the free flow of ideas.  Apple famously used the “Think Different” motto, along with noted historical figures and artistic legends like Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, the Dalai Lama, Miles Davis, and John Lennon and Yoko One.  But once again, Apple’s adherence to free thought and the challenging of convention is nothing but hypocritical ad copy.

There have been rumblings of app developers jumping ship and how Apple is jeopardizing its relationship with those upon whom it depends.  I think little of this.

As it stands, the sea-change in the App Store has been towards the large developer houses.  The early Wild West days of the App Store are nearly gone and the frontier is being fenced in by developers with deep pockets.  The result is that apps with big backers like the SI Swimsuit and Playboy apps get to stay while the apps made by indies like the SuicideGirls will be subject to the whims of anonymous Apple employees who hide behind claims of anonymous complaints from parents.

The Suicide Girls are not the first to be victims of Apple’s opaque approval and removal process and they will not be the last.