{"id":31878,"date":"2021-03-15T16:23:40","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T20:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=31878"},"modified":"2021-03-16T13:30:23","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T17:30:23","slug":"parler-denied-re-entry-to-the-app-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/15\/parler-denied-re-entry-to-the-app-store\/","title":{"rendered":"Parler Denied Re-entry to the App Store"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2021-03-10\/parler-cuts-ios-team-after-apple-blocks-return-to-app-store\">William Turton and Mark Gurman<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2021-03-10\/parler-cuts-ios-team-after-apple-blocks-return-to-app-store\"><p>When it initially removed Parler from the App Store in January, Apple asked the social network to change its moderation practices. Apple said that Parler&rsquo;s new community guidelines, released when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2021-02-15\/parler-back-online-after-getting-boot-from-amazon-over-riot\">the service came back online Feb. 15<\/a>, were insufficient to comply with the App Store rules.<\/p><p>[&#8230;]<\/p><p>&ldquo;In fact, simple searches reveal highly objectionable content, including easily identified offensive uses of derogatory terms regarding race, religion and sexual orientation, as well as Nazi symbols,&rdquo; Apple wrote &ldquo;For these reasons your app cannot be returned to the App Store for distribution until it complies with the guidelines.&rdquo;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/app-store\/review\/guidelines\/\">guidelines<\/a> simply say:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/app-store\/review\/guidelines\/\">\n<p>1.2 User Generated Content<\/p>\n<p>Apps with user-generated content present particular challenges, ranging from intellectual property infringement to anonymous bullying. To prevent abuse, apps with user-generated content or social networking services must include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A method for filtering objectionable material from being posted to the app<\/li>\n<li>A mechanism to report offensive content and timely responses to concerns<\/li>\n<li>The ability to block abusive users from the service<\/li>\n<li>Published contact information so users can easily reach you<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Parler has <a href=\"https:\/\/legal.parler.com\/documents\/guidelines.pdf\">all<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/legal.parler.com\/documents\/Elaboration-on-Guidelines.pdf\">this<\/a>. You can argue with how well it works, but the guidelines don&rsquo;t state any specific requirements about that. They also don&rsquo;t define &ldquo;objectionable content,&rdquo; except in the previous Section 1.1, which does not seem to be about user-generated content and is obviously not applied to other social apps.<\/p>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/initialcharge.net\/2021\/03\/parler-rejection-again\/\">Mike Rockwell<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/initialcharge.net\/2021\/03\/parler-rejection-again\/\">\n<p>Maybe you dislike Parler. And given the content on the platform, maybe there&rsquo;s plenty of reasons to. But I can&rsquo;t help but wonder if requiring more robust moderation systems from platform makers is in some ways bolstering the status quo.<\/p>\n<p>Are these App Store policies making it even more difficult for a smaller service to actually compete with the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube? Could a scrappy startup with limited resources <em>actually<\/em> buildup a compliant moderation system quick enough if they suddenly get an influx of new users?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>The answer is that it depends on whether Apple likes you. If you go by Apple&rsquo;s written guidelines, multiple apps were compliant, yet rejected anyway. If you go by Apple&rsquo;s stated objections, none of the major apps are compliant, yet they&rsquo;re in the store, anyway.<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/11\/roblox-in-the-app-store\/\">Roblox in the App Store<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/11\/parler-removed-from-app-stores-and-aws\/\">Parler Removed From App Stores and AWS<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2017\/08\/18\/gab-app-rejected-by-google-and-apple\/\">Gab App Rejected by Google (and Apple)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"parler-denied-re-entry-to-the-app-store-update-2021-03-16\">Update (2021-03-16): <a href=\"https:\/\/initialcharge.net\/2021\/03\/parler-rejection-tsai\/\">Mike Rockwell<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/initialcharge.net\/2021\/03\/parler-rejection-tsai\/\">\n<p>Regardless of your opinion about Parler, it&rsquo;s clear that Apple&rsquo;s policies are not enforced uniformly. And yes, I agree with the likely rebuttal &mdash; the App Store <em>is<\/em> a private platform, Apple makes the rules and can remove an app for any reason. But there&rsquo;s a difference between what they <em>can<\/em> do and what they <em>should<\/em> do. Without any predictability to policy enforcement, developers are left in the dark. And the smaller developers are the ones hurt the most.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>But I would also advocate for opening the platform. Because no matter how hard Apple tries, the review process will <em>never<\/em> be perfect. Just let developers distribute their own apps.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William Turton and Mark Gurman: When it initially removed Parler from the App Store in January, Apple asked the social network to change its moderation practices. Apple said that Parler&rsquo;s new community guidelines, released when the service came back online Feb. 15, were insufficient to comply with the App Store rules.[&#8230;]&ldquo;In fact, simple searches reveal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2021-03-15T20:23:44Z","apple_news_api_id":"684bdcf8-2e67-4637-acd1-50ba06c81e98","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2021-03-16T17:30:28Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AaEvc-C5nRjes0VC6BsgemA","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91,130,31,1837,26,2032],"class_list":["post-31878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-appstore","tag-rejection","tag-ios","tag-ios-14","tag-iosapp","tag-parler"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31878"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31889,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31878\/revisions\/31889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}