I would have seen that headline and rolled my eyes, except for this: The man who just won the Pulitzer Prize for cartoons can’t sell his cartoons on Apple because the company thinks his work is “defamatory.”
Apparently they’ve never heard of satire (which may explain why they, possibly, got so cranky about the Fake Steve Jobs?). Anyway, here’s how Apple explained the policy to cartoonist Mark Fiore, via the Nieman Foundation’s excellent Nieman Journalism Lab (and h/t to @ClaraJefferey):
“Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.” Examples of such content have been attached for your reference.”
This makes things that sound as boring as “net neutrality” pretty important (I’m also looking at you, Google). I seem to recall someone writing in a news magazine just as I left the US that Apple isn’t a beneficent company. It’s a company, and its goal is to make money. The Fiore smack down is another reminder that regardless of how comfortable we can get with the cushy image of corporations, there’s something worrying about one single group having too much power over, say, information. Given that power = money (you can read from left to righ or right to left) and money = corporate success, keep your eye on what that shiny shiny tablet is and isn’t doing.
UPDATE: In what I guess counts for Apple as a gesture of conciliation, Fiore has been invited to re-apply for an app. Aw.
