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Apple – The New Comics Censors

Dusty Ayres

Dusty Ayres

Commodore
Buying Apple's new devices for reading comic books? You might not want to because of this:

Some people who’ve never looked the word up in the dictionary believe that “censorship” can only come from the government or a state body. Not from a business or an individual. They are wrong.
Of course some people believe that censorship must, by its very nature, be always bad. They are also wrong, but that’s more of a subjective viewpoint and not relevant today. Back to the government/non-government thing.
At the Prism website, which celebrates and supports lesbians gays and transgendered in comics, both characters and creators, Prism founding president, Charles “Zan” Christensen has decided to take on Apple and the future of digital comics.
Because while many in comics see the iPad as a new frontier to be conquered and claimed, there are signs that something about the Apple is rotten.
Click to expand...


Apple – The New Comics Censors
 
Try typing the letters L, E, S and then B in to a Google search box and watch it stop giving you suggestions.
 
Hermiod-

How sad to confirm your google test, a little surprised I am, that it is so blantened, but we can not be suprised; this is what happenes when no one is watching the watchers.
 
Hmm. I'm not sure it's accurate to call it censorship. A business has the right to decide what products it wishes to carry. As long as there are alternative markets for the product, it can still get distributed. For instance, I wouldn't want to see X-rated comics sold on the rack at Toys R Us, but I would want their publishers to be able to sell them through other, age-appropriate markets. It would only become a problem if Toys R Us were the only business that sold comics at all. Then its marketing decisions would become de facto censorship due to the lack of alternative channels.

So defining this as a censorship issue is missing the more basic problem, which is monopolistic business practices. The problem isn't that Apple is intentionally restricting free speech; the problem is that Apple is too much of a monopoly and is thus restricting free trade, with free speech being a casualty. What we need is to break up the monopoly, restore the antitrust laws to the strength they used to have.
 
It might have had more impact if the author could actually write English correctly.
 
But I'm not seeing any blatant censorship of that term in google. Can you make a screenshot of your serch results?
 
It's not search results, it's suggestions, as you type in to a Google search field it offers you suggestions. If you start typing 'adult' terms it will stop offering any suggestions at all.
 
Oh ok, I always turn that auto-suggestion off because it annoys me. Now I understand why I didn't understand what you were talking about, thanks. :D
 
Yet another reason why I won't let e-book readers of any kind into my house.

Oh well, if nothing else this might spark a resurgence in the wonderfully creative underground comix genre that thrived during the Comics Code Authority era. The next Robert Crumb could look at these reports and say "screw that" and start creating the next Mr. Natural. We can only hope.

Alex
 
Apple's heavy-handed control strikes again :rolleyes:

I do have an iPhone and it's a cool device but I find myself wishing i'd gone for Android instead. The open model is sooo much better. I've already been put off to the iPad based on their heavy-handed limited walled-garden approach (not to mention Flash. Here comes the part where Apple fanboys try to convince me how garbage Flash is and it's better that it's not there even though most of my favorite sites have Flash on them).
 
Christopher said:
So defining this as a censorship issue is missing the more basic problem, which is monopolistic business practices. The problem isn't that Apple is intentionally restricting free speech; the problem is that Apple is too much of a monopoly and is thus restricting free trade, with free speech being a casualty. What we need is to break up the monopoly, restore the antitrust laws to the strength they used to have.
Click to expand...

Just my thinking exactly; that what I've been saying all along.
 
Christopher said:
So defining this as a censorship issue is missing the more basic problem, which is monopolistic business practices. The problem isn't that Apple is intentionally restricting free speech; the problem is that Apple is too much of a monopoly and is thus restricting free trade, with free speech being a casualty. What we need is to break up the monopoly, restore the antitrust laws to the strength they used to have.
Click to expand...

In what way is Apple a monopoly? They have less than 20% of the smart phone market (about 3% of the total worldwide cell phone market), they have a 10% share of the OS market in North America but their worldwide share is less than 5%. They do have a very dominant share of the MP3 player market between the various models of iPod.

So your beef comes down to whether or not the iPod Touch, iPhone and the iPad constitute a monopoly. Given the existence and thriving nature of the Android platform I'd say not, and there are several competitors to the iPad coming down the pipeline. They pretty much invented this tech segment, it's hard to condemn them for it. There are other outlets for making money that don't require forcing Apple to distribute products they don't want to sell or to split up into multiple companies. If you can't get Walmart to sell your wares, maybe Target will.

You can download movies and content through the PS3 and XBox live service, and consoles only play approved software. I don't think anyone who buys an iPad is under the illusion the device is anything but a pipeline for Apple-approved content in the exact same way a console is. They are not PCs, hell they aren't even as open as an OSX desk or laptop is, but the people who buy them don't expect them to be. The ones who do jail break them and put whatever the hell apps they want from a shit-ton of free and paid app websites that are out there.
 
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