We’ve raged long and hard about our opposition to Apple’s increasingly puritanical crusade, which has seen the company banning apps with naughty words (gosh!) and bikini-clad women (‘gasp!) from the App Store, and more recently, introducing ‘sext’ censoring technology.
Keepin’ it pure
It seems that Steve Jobs and Co are now turning their easily-offended gaze in the direction of their iTunes-connected Ping social networking service.
Artists wishing to create a Ping profile have been served up with a set of “iTunes content policies” and “best practices” (that is: requirements) that they have to follow in order to be accepted.
Here’s Apple laying down the law of what is acceptable content for an artist’s profile:
- Videos, photos, and text posts should not contain pornography, hate speech, racism, nudity, or any references to or depictions of drug use.
Oh dear. Poor old Ian Dury wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Link ye not
As well as the sex and drugs ban, Apple has decided to stick its chaste mitts all over what bands are allowed to link to, telling acts that they can forget all about linking to their own official websites and, well, just about everything else.
• “Posts should not include advertisements or links to sites outside of iTunes.
• “Posts should not contain links to other content providers.
• “URLs should not be included in the About section of your artist profile. This includes official artist website URLs. URLs can only be posted in the Event feed.
The only good news to come out of all this ridiculous interfering censorship is the fact that Ping seems such a crappy idea anyway that most sensible bands are unlikely to bother with it.
[Via]
Apple’s policies are looking increasingly ridiculous. But do they get some massive extra business from Conservative folk? It’s difficult to understand the business case otherwise…