

Phil Schiller Responds to App Store Dictionary Censoring  - Oompa
http://daringfireball.net/2009/08/phil_schiller_app_store

======
timdorr
This is the part I'm most worried about:

 _As is clear from the screenshots, Qingwen doesn’t bombard you with words
like “cock” and “penis” the moment you start it up. No, the Apple employee who
took those screenshots specifically searched for those words. As far as I’m
concerned, it’s the same thing as opening a website that contains swear words
(like the page you’re reading, for instance) on the iPhone. If they don’t want
Qingwen on the iPhone because it can show you “objectionable material”, then
why allow Safari, Mail, YouTube and pretty much any other app, which can
easily show you all sorts of even more “objectionable material”?_

I don't like the idea that reviewers are doing their best to _try_ and make my
apps fail approval. That comes across to me as a developer that Apple doesn't
want me to succeed. And based on how they have been treating developers
lately, that definitely seems to be the case.

At the very least, this shows that the execs at Apple at least know about the
problem. I know it's hard to miss, but I honestly thought they could have not
heard about these issues by now. It's that bad. The utter silence that their
corporate culture encourages is creating a horrible situation for them and for
us. They need to realize that the traditional ways of secrecy and black boxing
that normally works for other areas of their business is not going to work
here.

~~~
phil
Gruber is uncharacteristically imprecise in the paragraph you quote.

If you look at the parental controls interface on your iPhone (Settings ->
General -> Restrictions), it's obvious that Safari, Mail, YouTube, and so on
can be individually restricted. There's also the more general option that
allows restriction of third party apps based on rating.

The goal of the parental controls is to secure the device against anything
that goes beyond a given rated standard. That explains these decisions that
seem silly, like requiring an adult rating because if you search for 'fuck'
you get a definition, or because an app provides a webkit view of a totally
innocuous wikipedia page. These are security holes that an enterprising 12
year old who wanted to circumvent the parental controls might be able to
exploit.

Yeah, you have to turn off Safari and YouTube and the rest to get a fully
locked down phone, but you can do that. Doing so might be lousy parenting, but
that's not at issue. The parental control feature is designed to allow a
complete lockdown, that's what Apple claims it does, and the app review policy
has to be strict, or it won't work.

~~~
roc
That it's _possible_ isn't the relevant bit.

The fact that you can lock down _all_ third party browsers based on rating,
but have to explicitly lock down Safari separately exposes the absurdity and
inconsistency of this policy.

If Apple 'rated' Safari 17+ and youtube something like 14+, and the parental
controls were applied universally, their policy wouldn't be nearly so bad.

~~~
phil
Yeah, you get more granular control over the built-in apps. Why would it make
the policy better or more consistent if that ability were taken away?

~~~
roc
Because what you call 'granularity' is intentional inconsistency.

Apple is making a fairly strict policy decision (open internet == 17+). But
with separated parental controls for safari and youtube, they're are exempting
themselves from the downsides of this policy (equivocating Safari with apps
that _actually do_ contain vulgar, suggestive and/or violent content).

If they were at least willing to eat their own dog food, one could argue that
Apple _doesn't_ feel their policy is too strict. That they _don't_
demonstrates that even they can see that the classification system doesn't
quite work.

~~~
stepherm
I would assume the reason there are separate settings for Safari is because
you can delete 3rd party apps but you can't delete safari from the phone.

------
calambrac
_A quick search on Wiktionary.org easily turns up a number of offensive “urban
slang” terms that you won’t find in popular dictionaries such as one that you
referenced, the New Oxford American Dictionary included in Mac OS X._

We're _totally fine_ with established rich white vulgarity, but new poor black
vulgarity? Come on now, that's just crossing the line.

~~~
roc
Because urban dictionary is populated by poor minority kids in the city?

~~~
rwolf
It seems like there's a different between "content originating from
urbandictionary.com" and "urban slang." The latter phrase has an understood
(read: charged) meaning which predates urbandictionary.com

~~~
roc
Do you really think he's talking about jive turkey, ho, bitch, nigga or dawg?

~~~
calambrac
No, I think that where he meant 'extremely vulgar language', he mistakenly
reached for a term that has racial connotations.

~~~
GHFigs
How is that a mistake? Should he screen every word that he ever tries to
communicate to ensure that nobody could possibly misinterpret or distort his
statements into something offensive? Or is it reasonable for a person to
assume that their audience will not brand them a racist for using a term that
in isolation has very little to do with race?

Do you honestly believe that Schiller was referring to race? If not, do you
honestly believe that a substantial portion of other readers would have
interpreted it that way? If not, do you honestly belive that it was
unreasonable to use the term?

~~~
calambrac
Yes, your hyperbole aside, I do think people should take care in how they
speak. 'Urban slang' is pretty clearly associated with a particular socio-
economic group (regardless of if you wish to acknowledge that or not), and
saying that it, in particular, is the language that needs to be censored is
not A Good Thing.

But that doesn't mean this is a grievous sin, or that it's worth getting
worked up over. I didn't and am not excoriating him for it. It just struck me
as I was reading the article, and I thought it was worth pointing out.

 _Do you honestly believe that Schiller was referring to race?_

No, I don't think Schiller is a racist. But I am a little concerned that it
might point to a deeper, socially embedded racism, that the terms that were
deemed too offensive may actually have been inner-city slang that has
equivalent terms in the accepted dictionary. If the same idea can be expressed
in two different ways, one of which is considered vulgar, what, exactly is
driving that categorization?

 _If not, do you honestly believe that a substantial portion of other readers
would have interpreted it that way?_

I would hope they wouldn't read it and decide that he was a racist, no, but I
do think a lot of eyebrows were raised by it, yes.

 _If not, do you honestly belive that it was unreasonable to use the term?_

Yes, I think it was a bad choice of words. Even if you ignore that there are
racial connotations in the phrase, it still doesn't express what he means. Who
cares about 'city' slang? Suburban or rural slang can't be extremely vulgar?

Anyways, I think it's a little ironic that we're talking about whether he
should have to take care in the words he chooses to use, when the issue at
hand is that his company is censoring a dictionary.

~~~
GHFigs
I was not being hyperbolic. In your first post you specifically indicated that
you interpreted his meaning as racist. If your concerns reflect reality, it is
a real risk and should be treated as such. My contention is that your concerns
do not reflect reality, and that it is unlikely that very many reasonable
people at all would have mistaken this for racism.

 _'Urban slang' is pretty clearly associated with a particular socio-economic
group (regardless of if you wish to acknowledge that or not)_

Still, that's not a very convincing argument. You say yourself that you don't
believe Schiller was referring to race (contradicting your initial statement),
so why should I? Because _in some other context_ it could be used to express
something racist? My Uncle Tom likes Oreos as much as he likes Twinkies. Does
that make me racist?

I did not and do not claim that "urban slang" could not be interpreted to have
racial connotations. I do claim that in this case you have to willfully
distort the author's intent in order to read it the way you expressed in your
original post, and that characterizing it as the _author's_ mistake is
unwarranted.

 _But I am a little concerned that it might point to a deeper, socially
embedded racism_

Define "socially embedded".

 _If the same idea can be expressed in two different ways, one of which is
considered vulgar, what, exactly is driving that categorization?_

This is ambiguous: you're implying that racism is driving it just after
stating that you don't believe that was what was meant. You're reading
something into the text that is not there, and not citing any other reason.

 _I do think a lot of eyebrows were raised by it, yes._

What does that mean? My question was unambiguous. Your answer is not. You're
saying you think people both did and did not interpret it as racist.

 _I think it's a little ironic that we're talking about whether he should have
to take care in the words he chooses to use_

We aren't talking about _whether_ , but of _how much_. You appear to support
self-censorship even while seeming to acknowledge that few if any in the
audience actually regarded the term as reflecting racist intent. I do not
agree. I think that is unreasonably excessive in the majority of such
circumstances.

~~~
calambrac
Are you serious? I don't think he's a racist, I don't think he had racist
intent, but I think he accidentally used a racist phrasing, and that he should
be more careful in the future. That's really a difficult concept for you to
grasp?

~~~
GHFigs
How can an author be more careful? By never using any word that can possibly
be distorted? That's hopeless, and has a more deleterious effect on
communication than the misunderstandings it seeks to prevent.

As an avid English speaker, I wholeheartedly reject this notion of turning the
language into a minefield of words you absolutely must avoid even when nobody
is likely to misinterpret them.

~~~
calambrac
I think 'urban slang' obviously refers to the language of a particular socio-
economic group, and that avoiding using it in an inappropriate context is just
as simple as not swearing in front of your grandmother or not blurting out to
every attractive woman you meet that you want to have sex with her or
whatever. I mean, really, do you have Tourette's or something? You never think
it's appropriate to filter the words that first come to mind to say?

~~~
GHFigs
_You never think it's appropriate to filter the words that first come to mind
to say?_

I have explicitly stated otherwise in a prior post. You're choosing to
actively distort my words. Please don't do that. We disagree on the _degree_.
I find the degree of self-censorship you advocate to be excessive.

------
roc
"Apple did not censor"

You don't split hairs with a weasel-word defense if you're committed to any
sort of change. Note the difference between this (we didn't do anything wrong.
we'll do better in the future) and Bezo's letter (we fucked up. even if we
were technically right, it was still wrong. we'll do better in the future)

I can believe Bezos. Schiller? Not for a second.

------
ivankirigin
They essentially said "ohh, we don't mind the 'swear' words, just the really
bad ones"

Fuck that. It is exactly the same thing, but the lexicon has evolved.

~~~
jsz0
I agree with that but someone who has parental controls enabled may not.
That's why the feature exists. The "dirty words in dictionaries" battle has
already been fought in schools and libraries and it seems Apple is taking the
same route. Some words are OK, some aren't. It's not as though an NC-17 rating
on the App Store really causes any problems for a developer unlike a movie
getting an NC-17 rating which is a big deal still.

~~~
dpapathanasiou
" _It's not as though an NC-17 rating on the App Store really causes any
problems for a developer unlike a movie getting an NC-17 rating which is a big
deal still._ "

I wonder about that.

I wrote the Nihongo app, which, like NinjaWords, kept getting rejected until I
finally set the rating to 17+.

When it was finally in the AppStore, friends told me that an " _are you sure,
since this app has Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity and
Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes_ "-type warning came up just before
they hit "Buy".

I wonder how many people hesitated or declined to buy the app b/c of that.

~~~
jexe
Well for one thing, Apple does not let you give out promo codes for 17+ apps,
which is a big handicap for promotion of your work.

Similarly, I wrote the Jishobot app and had to change its rating up to 17+.
I'm calling bullshit on Phil Schiller's response. Am I allowed to say that?

~~~
mattp
As of July 26th, it looks likes promo codes have been allowed again for 17+
apps.

 _[http://www.tuaw.com/2009/07/26/update-promo-codes-are-now-
al...](http://www.tuaw.com/2009/07/26/update-promo-codes-are-now-allowed-
for-17-apps/*)

~~~
jexe
Hey, look at that! Tried it and it works. Thanks for the correction.

------
brg
How can a person on one hand say "Apple did not reject this developer’s
application for including references to common swear words" and on that other
hand know that the app was being banned because they wanted a 17+ rating due
to the availability, to quote the article, of the words "shit, fuck, and cunt,
specifically." Are not the former common swear words, and is not the
restriction of material from wider audiences censorship?

~~~
gojomo
Yes. Gruber touts Schiller's response as 'thoughtful', but what Schiller says
is inconsistent with Gruber's own excerpted reporting so far. Bottom-line:

Dictionary.com's app contains 'fuck', was released in April (before parental
controls), and now has an "age 4+" rating.

NinjaWords was given 'fuck' as one of several examples of problem vulgar terms
in screenshots and told to resubmit and/or wait for parental controls that
would put them in the "17+" category.

At the very least, Apple's prior guidance to NinjaWords was confusing and
incomplete, if it did not clearly state that 'fuck' was fine and the other
slang was the problem.

Schiller (at least as Gruber has excerpted) doesn't address this failing at
all.

~~~
boucher
Gruber consistently sides with Apple. He is, in essence, a fanboy. There are
exceptions, and he's not a moron, so when there's community uproar and obvious
stupidity he will say so. But his reporting is _heavily_ pro-apple overall.

~~~
greendestiny
The thing I really hate is as an obviously intelligent guy with the influence
to prompt a reply from an Apple exec his response is so... pathetic. That was
_not_ an encouraging and appropriate response from Apple, it was bullshit.

------
GiraffeNecktie
It's nice that Schiller took the time to respond, but his letter doesn't make
them look any better. They're still acting like useless self-appointed
meddling busybodies with rigor mortis of the anal sphincter. I can accept them
setting standards for hardware and software quality, but when they start
imposing their standards on the flow of information, services (Google Voice)
and ideas, they've lost me forever.

~~~
GHFigs
You won't be missed. There are far more potential customers who care about
"protecting" their children from various kinds of content. They constitute a
market that Apple wants to access, and the way to do that is to provide
mechanisms for filtering information on their behalf.

If you're fundamentally opposed to doing business with companies that restrict
the flow of information in order to access wider markets, you're going to have
to stop using (among other things) Google, which censors itself in China.

Otherwise, you're going to have to accept that some people _want_ their
information filtered by a third-party.

~~~
GeneralMaximus
I downvoted you. I don't wish to be mean, but what you said is just plain
stupid.

> Otherwise, you're going to have to accept that some people want their
> information filtered by a third-party.

I totally agree with that. But I also believe that these people should not be
allowed in a civilized society. Censorship is bad. End of question. There
should be a zero-tolerance policy against any kind of censorship anywhere in
the world.

And please, enough with the "what about the children?!" attitude. You are
responsible for your children. The rest of the society doesn't have to suffer
for them.

~~~
GHFigs
I can't tell if you're serious. If you're trolling, I applaud you. You got me.
Now please leave.

If not, let me state unambigously that you have completely misconstrued what I
said, ascribed opinions to me that I do not hold, and expressed one of the
most horrifyingly totalitarian ideals I have ever had the displeasure of
reading. I'm hesitant to write a more detailed reply because I'm not sure
whether you've just fundamentally misunderstood what is being discussed or
whether you're completely out of your mind. Do you truly wish for people to be
imprisoned (or however else excluded from civilized society) for using
parental controls on a prodcut they give to their children?

------
FiveFiftyOne
The problem here is two fold. Apple conduct a deliberate search for swear
words and slang, find it, flag it to the developer, and bounce the app.
Technorati goes mad, sets the blogosphere alight with vitriol and damns Apple
to hell, scant months after worshipping the self-same company. Alternatively,
Apple fail to conduct said search, pass the app, and someone's rosy cheeked
darling is caught scanning naughty words on their iPhone. Consumer advocacy
groups and parental groups set the blogosphere alight with vitriol and damns
Apple to hell. The honeymoon for Apple is over. They fought, they gained
market and mindshare, and now they find themselves in a position where their
former fans wish to slay them, and they're high profile enough to piss off the
non-techs who buy their tech. Will be watching the Apple hate with interest in
the coming months, same as with the Google hate. How we do loathe a victor.

~~~
umjames
So, who will you be cheering for in these Apple/Google vs. the people fights?

Personally in the Apple vs. the people fight, I'll be cheering for the people
who decide that they can do a better job policing themselves and their
children than Apple can. I know it's not easy, but it is a parent's job to
prepare their children to live in the world as it actually is. That includes
the vulgar, violent, and hateful things in the world.

~~~
jimbokun
"I know it's not easy, but it is a parent's job to prepare their children to
live in the world as it actually is. That includes the vulgar, violent, and
hateful things in the world."

<sarcasm>That must mean children growing up in war zones and neighborhoods
with a lot of crime must be the best "prepared" children, and parents should
try to emulate such environments for their children's benefit.</sarcasm>

~~~
umjames
That's not what I was implying. I was talking about the over-protective
parents and adults who try so hard to shield their children from the bad
things in the world (a noble idea), that they may unintentionally fail to
prepare them for such encounters.

When this happens, who knows how these children will respond? We hope
positively, but it could also be negatively or indifferently. Whatever it is,
by this time, it's usually too late for a parent to provide meaningful advice.

Adults can still provide a positive, nurturing environment at home for their
children and, at the same time, teach them about the right ways to handle
unpleasant situations they may encounter in their lives. These "unpleasant
situations" can occur in even the nicest of neighborhoods.

------
colinprince
Something still does not smell right about this.

Phil Schiller: _"Apple did not censor the content in this developer’s
application and Apple did not reject this developer’s application for
including references to common swear words."_

Phil Crosby: _"They provided screenshots of the words 'shit' and 'fuck'
showing up in our dictionary's search results."_

I'm sorry, this is a strong suggestion that without these types of words, the
app would be approved.

If you don't call that censorship, then call it "chilling effect", but the
outcome is the same.

And the other thing that doesn't ring true is the following oddity.

Phil Schiller: _"...anyone can easily see that Apple has previously approved
other dictionary applications in the App Store that include all of the 'swear'
words..."_

Then why did Apple reject the app for these swear words?

(And why is 'swear' in inverted commas?)

[edit: formatting]

------
ihumanable
The problem that I see is that Apple has no business being in the censorship
or rating business period. Sure there are "business reasons" to perform these
roles, but they are antithetical to a free society.

The free market answer would be, if you don't like it don't buy an iPhone.
That's great, but as technology marches forward there can only be a finite
number of companies with the skills and resources to create smart phones,
Apple being one of the nicest offerings. This concern will probably never
effect enough consumers for this to ever hurt Apple's bottom line, and so they
will never feel a free market pressure to change their behavior.

A sort of net neutrality type of guarantee must be struck here, market forces
will not prevail because this simply isn't an issue enough people care about.
Rights are being infringed however and that must be addressed.

~~~
jrockway
_The free market answer would be, if you don't like it don't buy an iPhone.
That's great, but as technology marches forward there can only be a finite
number of companies with the skills and resources to create smart phones,
Apple being one of the nicest offerings._

The key here is "one of the nicest". Is it nice if they use your money to
control what people can and can't think? And anyway, there is Android, which
is just as nice as the iPhone.

I really don't see any major differences between the iPhone and Android,
except that Android has the notification drawer and the iPhone shows
notifications on the app icon. They both have fine apps available in the same
areas, with Android leaning towards more useful apps, like IRC in the
background. The basic functionality is the same (except I can use Google Voice
for my calls), the browser is the same codebase, etc., etc. So anyone that
says they "have to have" an iPhone is probably wrong; Android will get them
everything the iPhone has, minus any Apple evilness. (HTC makes nice phones.)

~~~
ihumanable
I agree with you, I actually have a G1 and love it, the problem that I see is
that if this behavior is tolerated by Apple, then other carriers / handset
makers / marketplace maintainers could start to adopt a similar mindset.

Google has thankfully thrown their weight behind a free marketplace.

------
jcdreads
I feel cautious optimism at this sign that the top folks at Apple realize that
the app store approval process is a mess, and is perceived as such.

------
zach
There will always be decisions which seem arbitrary and subjective in these
situations because what's going on here is a very rough categorization with no
room for nuance. And the very idea of age as a measure of appropriateness is
pretty arbitrary to begin with, after all.

Parental controls and ratings are a quagmire. And the more technological the
product, the stickier it gets.

------
mrshoe
Well this effectively makes the parental controls useless. I don't want my
kids to watch porn on their phones, but I do want them to have dictionaries.

It seems that Apple is treating parental controls as way to check a checkbox
in a feature list, instead of as something that can actually be used.

------
gcheong
I wish George Carlin was alive to see this: (NSFW esp if you work at apple)
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_Nrp7cj_tM>

------
GeneralMaximus
"" That Schiller was willing to respond in such detail and length, on the
record, is the first proof I’ve seen that Apple’s leadership is trying to make
the course correction that many of us see as necessary for the long-term
success of the platform. ""

No, they're not. If they were even _trying_ , they would have scrapped the
approval process altogether. True, the approval process has resulted in many
high quality applications, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not
completely retarded.

Also, funny to see John Gruber changing his stance on the issue in one day.

------
xiaoma
The idea that teenagers under 17 need to be shielded from certain language is
ridiculous. I'm pretty sure they can handle it. I listened to _NIN_ as a 14
year old, read "profane" Heinlein stories and watched numerous violent movies.
I don't feel particularly corrupted by it.

------
dan_the_welder
Oh noes! "unfiltered internet access" is bad.

------
anigbrowl
Perhaps Apple should rebrand themselves as the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.

