Apple did not censor Saga. Or: leaping to conclusions and the problem with Apple’s silence
I earlier today wrote about Saga issue 12 being banned from the App Store and how Apple was being inconsistent (and sometimes hypocritical) in its treatment of content within apps and therefore needed to update its parental controls. The assumption I—and everyone else made—was that Apple had banned Saga. The assumption the comic’s co-creator made was that this had something to do with the depiction of gay sex within the issue. It turns out pretty much everyone was wrong.
On the Comixology website, CEO David Steinberger revealed what really happened:
In the last 24 hours there has been a lot of chatter about Apple banning Saga #12 from our Comics App on the Apple App Store due to depictions of gay sex. This is simply not true, and we’d like to clarify.
As a partner of Apple, we have an obligation to respect its policies for apps and the books offered in apps. Based on our understanding of those policies, we believed that Saga #12 could not be made available in our app, and so we did not release it today.
We did not interpret the content in question as involving any particular sexual orientation, and frankly that would have been a completely irrelevant consideration under any circumstance.
Given this, it should be clear that Apple did not reject Saga #12.
After hearing from Apple this morning, we can say that our interpretation of its policies was mistaken. You’ll be glad to know that Saga #12 will be available on our App Store app soon.
All’s well that ends well, then, apart from the thorny issue that this kind of thing is going to keep on happening. People will make assumptions regarding what happened surrounding an Apple-oriented incident because Apple’s press centre pretty much never responds to request for comment. Similarly, developers will either self-censor or get censored because Apple’s rules are opaque and vague.
I certainly don’t think Apple should communicate in the manner that some hacks demand: “Tell us everything about all your future plans!” But that the company now essentially refuses to answer anything is part of the reason things like the Saga issue become so widespread, and the net result will be that lots of people read about ‘evil Apple censoring content’ but not necessarily ‘oh, that wasn’t Apple after all, but the comics distributor everyone was feeling sorry for’.
Update: On the basis of comments here and elsewhere, it seems I need to be a bit clearer about a few things. First, yes I got this one totally wrong. I fully admit that. Hell, the title of this post is “leaping to conclusions”, which is a bit of a pointer. Also, I updated both previous posts very obviously to state that Apple did not in fact ban anything.
Secondly, I also stand by the other point I made, in that when someone asks Apple a question, the fact a response is almost never forthcoming is a problem. I’ve been writing about Apple for 13 years now, and I’ve lost count of the number of press requests I’ve made. I recall maybe getting any response whatsoever perhaps a dozen times and literally once getting something beyond “no comment”. (This also seems a peculiarly non-US thing. For some reason, Apple’s much happier confirming or denying reports to US-based writers. In the UK, it appears much harder to get a response.)
Thirdly, this wasn’t a total loss, because it enabled me to formulate some thoughts on Apple’s parental controls that I’ve been meaning to get written down for a while. Regardless of who thought Saga should or should not have been on the store, such mature content points to the fact iOS could really do with a much simpler to activate but also much more granular ‘kid mode’ of some kind.
Still, when writing, I agree with those people who’ve argued—even when blogging—facts should be thoroughly checked. In this case, pinging Comixology’s PR too would have made sense, and I regret not doing so. Contacting press teams from all those involved is something I always do when writing for a commercial publication, and a blog should ideally hold itself to the same standard. For various reasons, this personal blog to me has usually been a home for more off-the-cuff trains-of-thought, and I’ve never considered this place particularly influential, given that its traffic levels aren’t very high.
Nonetheless, this incident has made me think considerably and very carefully this evening about how this blog will operate in the future and the kind of content it will carry; right now, I imagine there’ll be less ‘rushing to judgment’ and also ‘just less’. That should be good for everyone, in the long run.
And where pray tell is your apology for acting like a douche over this? I seem to recall in your first rant that you stated that you hated Apple.
Is this still the case and if not, why are you so contrite about admitting you were wrong?
If Apple had to refute every crackpot theory posted about them and their business these days they’d need a BIG department just for that.
@Horace: In my first ‘rant’, I would hope anyone would have been able to tell from the tongue-in-cheek penultimate paragraph (so far in cheek that it made permanent stretch marks) that I was taking the piss. As for an apology, one might argue that’s something that would be more suitable when you arrive on, say, someone’s blog and insult them while posting anonymously, but there you go.
@Jos: Apple could quite easily respond to “did you ban this?”. But Apple doesn’t really respond to anything. Hell, even a perfectly lovely story I was writing about web tech last year got bounced by the company’s PR. Mozilla, Opera, Microsoft and Google all got stuck in, note. (That said, Google’s UK PR now appears to be in an Apple-like level of lockdown, for reasons that are beyond me.)
Let’s not pretend it’s an Apple problem. Every device that connects to the Interweb has the potential to deliver unwelcome or harmful content to an audience that is not expecting.
But the policy on App content is evidently not clear enough, even to established companies. That’s what needs to change the most. That, and the attitude that Apple’s way of doing things is inherently and immediately “bad” enough to cause comment.
Craig, don’t get too stressed about this. You post interesting stuff from an informed and personal angle; that’s a big part of its value. Fact-checking is important, but there are necessary differences in the level of background research done for dissertations and serious news articles at one end of the spectrum and personal musings at the other. Stand by your “home for off-the-cuff trains of thought” declaration (make it an explicit disclaimer?) and don’t let the trolling bastards grind you down!
@Keith: Thanks for your support. As I clarified to someone on Twitter, I’m not going to trash the snark nor avoid certain subjects. I think it’s just a matter of approach—kind of a tweak/nudge more than a massive change in direction.