Apple Removes Satirical Sweatshop Game App

Many of Apple's App Store approval guidelines — Apple playing judge, jury and bouncer — make sense. There's the one about apps that crash outright, the one about apps not performing as advertised, the one about apps that try to charge you for push notifications, or the one about apps that target minors for data collection. Functionality, privacy, your pocketbook — who's going to argue with safeguarding those?

And yet there's also some profound weirdness here, in particular Cupertino's folksy "just lookin' out for you" preamble, whose second paragraph — often cited, since appearing in 2010, for its cultural backwardness — reads (in part):

We view Apps different than books or songs, which we do not curate. If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical app. It can get complicated, but we have decided to not allow certain kinds of content in the App Store.

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