Pepe Is Banned From the Apple App Store (vice.com) 291
An anonymous reader shares a report: The rarest pepe is one found on the iOS App Store, and now we know why: Apple has categorized the meme frog as "objectionable content" and has rejected an app called Pepe Scream, Motherboard confirmed. "Your app contains images and references of Pepe the Frog, which are considered objectionable content," an Apple App Review Board employee named Nicole wrote in a rejection notice to Spirit Realm Games, the developer of Pepe Scream. "It would be appropriate to remove the references and revise the images in your app." MrSnrhms, a developer for Spirit Realm Games, gave Motherboard temporary access to the team's iOS developer account, which showed that Apple did indeed reject the app because it contains Pepe, a cartoon frog that has been increasingly associated with the alt-right. Also read: Pepe the Frog Is Dead.
But Pepe is dead! (Score:5, Funny)
How could he even go to the Apple App Store?
like the Confederate flag? (Score:5, Insightful)
Citations:
http://www.theblaze.com/news/2... [theblaze.com] http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/2... [cnn.com]
Re:like the Confederate flag? (Score:4, Insightful)
Target should have known their target audience better. When your only sales argument is your low, low price, your target audience is probably not the hipster crowd.
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boycotting Target over a bathroom issue
Actually if all the men who were boycotting Target over the men in the women's bathroom issue would just go to Target and use the women's bathroom every time they had to go, Target would change its policy in a BIG hurry.
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Assuming you're a man, walk into a dozen ladies rooms and tell us how it goes. Best if they're someplace where the bathrooms are busy. A bar, not Target.
Bonus if you walk into the ladies room at a tittie bar.
Shhh It's okay dear. (Score:4, Insightful)
Tim will keep you safe. No one will hurt your feelings here.
Why I'll never own an iPhone (Score:5, Insightful)
Censorship is unacceptable.
Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Make Pepe gay. Apple will be struggling internally and won't be able to decide if it should be banned or accepted.
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Funny how the alt-right seems to support Milo Yiannopoulos, and he is very openly gay.
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Nah, it's like the "your original comment was stupid, and here's why" of the alt-right. And my response is the "now stop doubling down on stupid" of the alt-right.
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Because he's black? Racism isn't restricted to white people.
Re:Symbol adopted by racist sacks of shit (Score:5, Interesting)
One way to think of this would be a new form of Denial of Service attack. Just take any icon you want, and create a fake hate group that idolizes it, and start reporting that icon to various organizations to have all content with that icon removed.
Re:Symbol adopted by racist sacks of shit (Score:5, Funny)
If you want to see change, do this to Mickey Mouse ASAP.
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If you want to see change, do this to Mickey Mouse ASAP.
Change is about all you will have left to your name if you were to try it. Disney has a bit more money and a slightly larger legal team than the creator of Pepe the Frog.
Re:Symbol adopted by racist sacks of shit (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, if you google "mickey mouse nazi" or similar, you pretty much see... well, more or less what you'd expect to see: tons of mickey mouse in SS uniforms and the like. In fact, if you compare "mickey mouse nazi" to "pepe nazi", you get almost the same amount of hits (at least, I do, YMMV). Because that's how the Internet works. However, it's not politically convenient for anyone to try associating Mickey Mouse with fascism, so no one cares.
Re:Symbol adopted by racist sacks of shit (Score:5, Insightful)
I have seen that happen with my country's flag.
No, really. I have literally seen people argue NOT to use the flag in a logo because it's heavily used by a political party considered far right/nationalist. So ... the most obvious symbol of a country should not be used in the logo for that country's branch of a global group. Because OMG RAYCYSTS!
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Well, I live there NOW, actually, which is why you'll see me comment a lot on the state of internet connectivity in Germany, but I'm referring to my birth country, Denmark. Which incidentally has one of the oldest (if not the oldest, period) flags in the world.
Re:Symbol adopted by racist sacks of shit (Score:5, Funny)
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"Apple IPhones, the official phone of the KKK."
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I haven't seen much moaning about Apple in the comments for this story. Nothing surprising in Apple floating with every moral panic, or rumor of a moral panic.It's the product they sell, and apparently people like it. Fair enough.
The annoying bit is that one story in the Daily Beast, based on sources that were channers and (naturally) trolled the reporter about Pepe being an alt-right symbol, was all it took for people to believe that nonsense. (The bit where the Hillary campaign called Pepe a hate symbol
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Don't worry. I'm sure you can tell us now why Laci Green is a gender traitor and why she needs to be purged from the annal of feminist literature.
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You know, for being a site full of "smart" people. there sure are a lot of people with either no brains or their head so far up their ass you cant tell the difference.
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There are days where browsing at -1 and reading the weird gay porn comments is the best thing to do on Slashdot. Some of those underground gay porn writers are pretty good.
Re:Symbol adopted by racist sacks of shit (Score:5, Informative)
Except Pepe the Frog wasn't adopted by racist sacks of shit.
4Chan tricked the media into thinking that was the case. Just like they tricked them into thinking the "OK" hand gesture was a symbol for white power.
Every instance on social media you see of Pepe the Frog or the "OK" hand gesture being used for such purposes is a farce. The media bought it whole hog, with zero investigation, zero confirmation, and zero thinking.
Re:Symbol adopted by racist sacks of shit (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, they also convinced a few members of the media that creatine fueled elliot rogers' murder spree.. basically 4chan is a bit like the onion, entertaining but don't even for a second take it seriously.
Re:Symbol adopted by racist sacks of shit (Score:4, Informative)
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The problem is that enough people now believe that Pepe is now a symbol of white supremacists, that it might as well be. Hell, even the original creator of Pepe believes it to the point where he gave up on the character.
Lets face it... Pepe is now a symbol of hate. Whether it originated as a prank or not is irrelevant.
The swastika was a good luck symbol before the Nazis used it. Now you can get arrested in some parts of the world if you use it anywhere.
And now Pepe is receiving the same treatment. It's
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Who is the final authority on what qualifies? You say "enough people", but it seems a HUGE number of people isn't enough since the millions of people across the world who see the hammer & sickle as a symbol of hate have yet had their feelings acknowledged. Does it require something else? Perhaps those millions don't have the correct political alignment... maybe that's it.
Re:Symbol adopted by racist sacks of shit (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah and when racist sacks of shit that don't bother with 4Chan see it reported and start doing it not ironically but rather with intent... well, at that point it is a symbol of racist shitbags
Point to some examples of this happening, please. Also quantify them - establish that they were numerous and pervasive, not incidental, and thus justified considering the image to be "a symbol of racist shitbags".
Even the creator of pepe has disavowed his own creation because its been co-opted.
Who the fuck cares what the creator does or says? You're still begging the question. You're claiming it was "co-opted" but have failed to show that it was in fact used by actual racists for racist purposes and have failed to show that any such usage rose to a level that would turn it into a symbol of hate.
It's a shitty looking cartoon frog. The only thing it's a symbol of is weak, shitty memes.
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What about Richard Spencer who was wearing a pin of Pepe when he got famously punched in the face on camera? Just a conincidence im sure.
He can wear whatever he wants. But if you want to use that line of reasoning, liberals and progressives are being very well represented by the events at evergreen college and the riots at Berkeley.
What about the tons of pepe meme I find on alt right facebook groups?
You mean besides the people that use them in order to piss you off so you become a foaming mouth breather who's batshit insane? Seems to be working.
Are we just arguing that these people aren't racist shitbags?
They're not, they're trolling you. And it's why Trump is going to win a second term, the left have done more in the last 6mo drive people fro the left to center and center-right then anything else could have. I personally can't wait to see where it ends up. But considering the left already broke down into violence? I'm guessing that'll be their next attempt again.
Are we just arguing that these people aren't racist shitbags.
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Do try to not read into my comment more than I have written.
Thats not hard because you haven't said much of anything that actually adds to the conversation.
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That is correct. My comment is only on the usage of the term "racist." It's not even remotely important.
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This viewpoint is similar to the Christian "Everyone has sinned" baloney. It's there to establish a feeling of guilt. It serves no positive purpose in society.
I wouldn't say it serves NO positive purpose. It's supposed to burst the bubble of unearned pride (re: arrogance) one can get. Unfortunately, many have taken that and turned it into false humility.
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'Alt-right' are _not_ generally racists. You start from bullshit, you end at bullshit.
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Black 'white power manchildren'?
Asian 'white power manchildren'?
Mexican 'white power manchildren'?
All you've got is worn out overused insults.
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The group grew because their opposition were a bunch of neo-Stalinists using violence.
So now anybody who opposes violent commie children is an automatic 'racist'...racist blacks, mexicans, gays etc.
You can't be willing to kick the shit out of a few actual fascists without being labeled 'alt-right'.
Re: Symbol adopted by racist sacks of shit (Score:5, Funny)
You are a sign of racism. I have taken your name and used it to post racist comments all over the Internet. Please delete your Slashdot account immediately as it is a sign of alt-right hate.
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Jokes on you Anonymous Coward, people have been trashing your name for years!
Re: Symbol adopted by racist sacks of shit (Score:5, Informative)
Alt-right is not racist, get a clue.
The KKK probably mostly votes Republican, but most Republicans are not members of the KKK. Same with the alt-right.
The alt-right, in simplest terms, says: multiculturalism doesn't actually work. Mixing cultures leads to conflict. Furthermore they believe specifically that Western culture is threatened by multiculturalism, because too many migrants from non-western cultures are being accepted, and failing to integrate.
There's nothing particularly racist about that. There may well be something racist in the progressive position that everyone except westerners should strive to preserve their culture.
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The KKK was a function and part of the Democrats. As late as the 1970's. The transfer of the KKK to the "republicans" was a slight of hand magician's trick by the Media and the Democrats. The greatest hate group in America continues to be the Democrat Party, they just haven't gotten around to banning themselves.
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The KKK was a function and part of the Democrats. As late as the 1970's. The transfer of the KKK to the "republicans" was a slight of hand magician's trick by the Media and the Democrats
The transfer of the KKK to the Republicans was a result of the Republican "Southern Strategy" to strip political support from the Democrats in the South.
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The transfer of the KKK to the Republicans was a result of the Republican "Southern Strategy" to strip political support from the Democrats in the South.
Which of course really explains why democrats continue to push segregation, and identity politicos are core party values right?
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> it was Goldwater and Reagan, who decided that courting the Strom Thurmonds of the world
Oh puhlease, give me a break. And next you're going to tell me that Hillary Clinton swapping spit with Robert Byrd in the front of cameras was all a figment of my imagination....
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Why bother bradley? If you say any of those things about multiculturalism, immigration or preserving Western culture, you're going to be called a "racist" anyway. And who gives a shit? It's just a word.
People crying "Racism!" are only trying to shut you up and divert the argument. Don't even waste your time with them. As soon as you start arguing about who is & isn't "racist" or why certain ideas might or might not be "racism", you're playing their game. Rather than discussing ideas, you're suddenl
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Being against multiculturalism is not about race, it's about being against mixing different cultures and different ways of life within the same society. Multiculturalism leads to communitarianism, even if people are of the same race, and communitarianism leads to the destruction of social cohesion, which leads to hatred and violence. Multiculturalism is extremely destructive to societies.
And no, someone's race does not define his culture or his religion. Associating a culture to a specific race is racism. F
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so anybody that supports trump is a racist?
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It's a wonderfully circular set of definitions.
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AKA you're showing the world you're actual a bigot, and they're all laughing at you.
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Go buy a device that offers it.
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so you mean go make a raspberry pi mobile phone?
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If that Fairphone didn't smell like it was more concerned with bleeding-heart do-goodie than actually being a phone that gives you the choice to have what you want to have, it would be a good start.
But yeah, maybe it's time to ponder the possibilities of a RasPi as a phone.
Re:but (Score:5, Insightful)
The word "Swastika" is a Sanskrit word. Never in the short history of the Nazi regime did any German refer to it with the word "Swastika", but the word "Hakenkreuz".
What i find sad is that uneducated idiots like you refer to it as a Swastika thus vivifying a word unrelated to the Nazis which is actually important to half the world population located in Asia from religious, cultural, and historical standpoints.
Those standpoints are 2000 years old, far more than the short-lived 20 year old Nazi Regime.
In this case, it is not that words evolved, but that brains of people like yourself devolved and the vocabulary with them.
This requires correction. Not only to bring justice to the Asian people, but also to resolve the injustice perpetrated by misinformation and lack of education of people like yourself giving a cultural victory to the Nazis over a symbold they don't deserve, all because people like you are so small-minded that they need a brand recognition for an ideology even if it means offending and desecrating 2000 years of history of a continent which makes half the planet's population.
The real injustice is calling is a "Swastika", and deeming it a "hate symbol", because of shortsightedness and narrow-mindedness.
This frog meme thing being politicized and banned is a far more idiotic representation of idiocracy than what the above stated represents.
It is also pathetic, childish, and narrow-minded.
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Hagenkreuz is German for Swastika, dumbass.
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But is he alt-right?
Re:but (Score:5, Funny)
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Oh good grief. Who's the fascists here? Think about that for a bit and get back to me. I'm curious what you come up with.
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Those with fascist ideals are the fascists. It's that simple.
If you are trying to imply that Apple is fascist by removing something that people may find disturbing (even if I personally think people shouldn't be) then you are wrong and should be ashamed.
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Those with fascist ideals are the fascists. It's that simple.
Yeah, let's find a definition: dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and control of industry and commerce. Of these, Apple doesn't wield a dictatorial power (yet?), but the rest are spot on. On the other hand, I don't see anything that would match that definition among people you want to apply that label to.
Racism != fascism, they're completely orthogonal. Of the three main regimes that were strongly fascist (Mussolini, Hitler and Putin), only the Nazis really cared about race.
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Putin?
The third, undisputed, label self-applying, historic 'fascist' leader was Franco.
But you're basically right. Franco cared, a lot, about Catholicism though.
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Right, Franco is fourth, I've forgotten about him.
As for Putin, that's pretty ironic as "fascist" is his propaganda machine's favourite insult.
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When you bring debatables into the discussion, it doesn't help.
Forth would be Edi Amine. He self applied the label IIRC.
By any reasonable definition of Fascist. Right now: Venezuela, Saudi, Pakistan, N. Korea. But all debateable.
Re:but (Score:4, Insightful)
Is this a joke I just didn't get?
Kek is just "lol" from the orcs in World of Warcraft. It's just a dumb 4chan joke. Doing something for top kek isn't some internal neo-nazi language. It's the new kid on the block way of saying you are doing something "for the lulz", or "just for laughs" or "insert your newfangled new kid slang here".
The fact that this stuff is taken so seriously is almost frightening in and of itself. When did our culture get so engrossed in this dumb garbage?
I don't remember apple banning the cockmongler and reporting on the mean antics of something awful goons. The world has gone mad.
Kids always try to find something that will bother the previous generation. It looks like this hyper-offensive bullshit is jut the new way to laugh at your parents. Do what adults are supposed to do. Ignore it.
Re:but (Score:5, Informative)
It has been co-oped to be the symbol for Kek, a neo-fash (New Fascists) group that is associated with the so-called "Men's Rights Movement" and "The Red Pill".
100% false. You just made that up. Complete BS.
Kekistan is a satire of identity politics. It mocks the white nationalists as much as anyone else. Kekistan was created (or at least popularized) by YouTuber Sargon of Akkad, whose politicla views are well know and not alt-right. (He has a track record of sending known alt-right people who follow him interracial porn until they unfollow).
Pepe is just a meme. There are Million s of Pepe images, with only about a half dozen base images that could be considered racist, such as Hitler Pepe. It was the most popular meme image of 2015 (according to Tumblr) so of course there a Hitler Pepe - there's an everything Pepe.
But now Pepe is a counter-culture Icon, ever since it was attacked by the Hillary campaign.
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Pepe was the most popular meme of 2015. Maybe some alt-right trolls use it too - wouldn't surprise me. Doesn't make it an alt-right meme.
"Kek" is just what the cool kids say instead of "lol". Seriously.
You need therapy for your paranoia. Not saying that to be a dick: when you see hate in words and symbols that are used by everyone for everything, it's a warning sign. Take that seriously; seek help.
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will you ban other stuff when it's co-opted too? (Score:3)
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What if some group makes Sponge Bob memes, or peace symbol memes, rainbow flag memes (this is already a thing), etc into hateful memes
All of those images are very well known across the culture. Pepe the Frog wasn't -- I'd say he has far far more exposure as a hate symbol than from the original usage, sad to say.
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That moron wasn't a Berkeley prof. He was an unemployed former part time instructor at some brain dead Jr college.
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Yep. The /bTards accidently raised an elder god. Saw it on youtube...
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Foolish mortal. I am willing to bet that you have never even stood in front of an Egyptian altar, or honoured The Gods. As you have evoked from the Egyptian Pantheon, when you die, you will stand before Osiris, and He will weigh your heart....I would suggest that you might want to go on a severe diet before you die...but then again, why bother, I am sure that Thoth will not be recording that you entered the afterlife.
Pitiful mortal.
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Whereas conservative values concerning things like the sanctity of one's personal property and the benefits of strong copyright seemingly evaporate the moment that someone appropriates Pepe for conservative lulz.
Did Matt Furie author the app, or license it to the app? I doubt it, because Pepe is dead [theverge.com].
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On the one hand, it's all a 4chan con, Pepe isn't really loved by the alt-right... But when the author kills him off, we are gonna go ape-shit and he can't be killed because he's ours now!
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Did he bother trademarking it?
He owns specific drawings of Pepe, other people can draw frogs and name them Pepe.
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Did he bother trademarking it?
He owns specific drawings of Pepe, other people can draw frogs and name them Pepe.
Even if he trademarked it, what's he going to do? These aren't major companies going out appropriating Pepe the Frog, it's many individuals. He could sue one dude, but so what? He'll be out a lot of money and there 499,999 other dudes in line to be sued. Trademark has to be defended, and if you can't defend it, people can still run roughshod over it. His 'pepe the frog is dead' thing was an admission that there's really nothing he can do about, so he's washing his hands of his involvement.
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Pepe is a pretty generic frog. Green, two eyes, four limbs. If another frog is a violation of copyright, then Pepe is as well, he wasn't first.
You can draw a mouse named mickey under copyright law, but you'll get killed by trademarks.
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like the sanctity of one's personal property and the benefits of strong copyright
You do realize you just contradicted yourself? Either you hold actual property dear, or believe in imaginary one. Putting restrictions on what I can do on hardware I supposedly own deprives me of a good part of that possession's value.
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And I am a private citizen and can decide whether I approve of their censorship and buy their crap or whether I decide to not honor their politics and abstain.
Yes, that is actually a choice you have.
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And I am a private citizen and can decide whether I approve of their censorship and buy their crap or whether I decide to not honor their politics and abstain.
Nah, you should get government to force Apple to serve you a Pepe app the same way they forced that bakery to serve a gay wedding cake.
I'm not saying which position is correct on either of those issues. I'm just saying people should be consistent across both of them.
Either a business can refuse to sell both those things to anyone or everyone as they please, or the government can compel a business to sell those things if/when somebody asks for them.
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Remember when the Liberals cared about Liberty?
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Remember when the Liberals cared about Liberty?
You mean when they were fighting the Republicans and trying to start a new country so they could keep their slaves?
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Personally, I think it was a wrong decision to force any private company to do something like that. What they should enforce is priests perform gay weddings. If you take government money, you agree to do government's bidding.
Re:trolling libtards (Score:5, Insightful)
"But Apple is a private company and can cens^H^H^H^H do what they want herp derp."
Of course they can. And we can mock them at every opportunity for doing so.
Re:trolling libtards (Score:5, Insightful)
"But Apple is a private company and can cens^H^H^H^H do what they want herp derp."
It's all well and good until something you think isn't hate speech becomes Apple hate speech.
Or the altcoin you like to use suddenly becomes "against the terms of service". Then so much for your phone investment.
Really, Apple is so filthy rich and they keep getting richer by selling average people a bland comfort bubble, that they should just offer to buy back phones from people who complain about the apps they pull. It would be a trivial slice of their userbase and they could resell the phones as refurbs anyway.
I do think they are doing security right, but I can't even consider using an Apple phone, because I can't have one that may have features I depend on be taken away retroactively. So far, Android is a safe choice for predictability, even if the security is kind of iffy for the non-diligent user.
Re: trolling libtards (Score:2)
Heh... Those men made of straw were pretty easy to defeat.
Well, unless you threaded your comment in the wrong spot.
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> You don't have a right to be on every platform. You don't have a right to force Apple to publish your speech.
Tell that to the bakers forced by the government to bake for LGBT whatevers.
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Apple is a private company and can do what they want
But Fox News can't, remember.
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It's a cartoon frog whose copyright is owned by its creator. If he doesn't want it used in an app, it doesn't get used.
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You don't understand the difference between copyright and trademark, or you're playing stupid to make a point.
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Pepe is covered by both copyright and trademark. The first is automatic and requires no application and the second requires an application.
Either one is enough to prevent anyone from using Pepe in an app without permission.
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When Pepe become public domain, then it can be used for an app. But beware, there is also trademark involved. Trademarks do not become public domain.
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So, you believe that after a certain amount of time, Apple's trademark should be free for use by any computer manufacturer?
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Re: Not assoc. w/ Alt-Right (Score:3, Insightful)
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Around here, a penny is all most thoughts are worth.