Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs once told an irritated blogger that the iPhone offered “freedom from porn,” but what about freedom from artsy photography?

The company pulled photo-sharing app 500px from its App Store after deciding that it was a vehicle for pornography. Worse, Apple has said it “received customer complaints about possible child pornography.”

500px COO Evgeny Tchebotarev told The Verge, “We’ve never ever, since the beginning of the company, received a single complaint about child pornography. If something like that ever happened, it would be reported right away to enforcement agencies.”

Apple is famously strict about its app approval process. As of this posting, 500px was available on the rival Android Play store, where it had more than 100,000 downloads. This blogger was able to spot a pretentious looking breast in a black and white photograph, although most of 500px’s main page featured over-Photoshopped pictures of animals and landscapes.

— Posted by Peter Z. Scheer. Follow him on Twitter: @peesch.

 WAIT BEFORE YOU GO...

This year, the ground feels uncertain — facts are buried and those in power are working to keep them hidden. Now more than ever, independent journalism must go beneath the surface.

At Truthdig, we don’t just report what's happening — we investigate how and why. We follow the threads others leave behind and uncover the forces shaping our future.

Your tax-deductible donation fuels journalism that asks harder questions and digs where others won’t.

Don’t settle for surface-level coverage.

Unearth what matters. Help dig deeper.

Donate now.

SUPPORT TRUTHDIG
In this Article:
#apple#art#censorship#photography#pornography#tech