Mark Fiore can win a Pulitzer Prize, but he can’t get his iPhone cartoon app past Apple’s satire police
Update: Since this story ran, Apple has reversed its original decision. Mark Fiore’s iPhone app is now for sale. Full post is up here.
This week cartoonist Mark Fiore made Internet and journalism history as the first online-only journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize. Fiore took home the editorial cartooning prize for animations he created for SFGate, the website for the San Francisco Chronicle.
I spoke with Fiore about his big win and plans for his business. Fiore is not on staff at the Chronicle, or anywhere else; since 1999, he’s run a syndication business, selling his Flash animations à la carte to TV, newspaper, and magazine websites for about $300 a piece. (The price varies by size of the outlet.) In a typical month, he might have about eight clients. Before 1999, he ran a similar syndication business for his print cartoons, using a lower-price-per-image, higher-volume model.
When I asked about the next phase of his business, curious if it will include a mobile element, Fiore said he’s definitely hopeful about mobile devices. “I think the iPads and anything iPod to iPhone — to maybe a product not made by Apple — will be good or could be good for distributing this kind of thing,” he said.
But there’s just one problem. In December, Apple rejected his iPhone app, NewsToons, because, as Apple put it, his satire “ridicules public figures,” a violation of the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, which bars any apps whose content in “Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.”
Here’s the email Fiore received from Apple on December 21, 2009:
Dear Mr. Fiore,
Thank you for submitting NewsToons to the App Store. We’ve reviewed NewsToons and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.14 from the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement which states:
“Applications may be rejected if they contain content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable, for example, materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.” Examples of such content have been attached for your reference.
If you believe that you can make the necessary changes so that NewsToons does not violate the iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, we encourage you to do so and resubmit it for review.
Regards,
iPhone Developer Program
Apple attached screenshots of the offending material, including an image depicting the White House gate crashers interrupting an Obama speech. Two other grabs include images referencing torture, Balloon Boy, and various political issues.
Fiore isn’t the first editorial cartoonist to clash with Apple. Last year, an app called Bobble Rep app, which used political caricatures by Tom Richmond, was initially rejected by Apple. After an online uproar, a few days later Apple changed its position, allowing the app into the store. (Fiore’s rejection landed in his inbox just a month later.) Daryl Cagle, who runs a cartoon syndication site with 900 newspaper subscribers, had a similar battle with Apple last year, waiting around for months before eventually being allowed in. And while Apple eventually ruled in those cartoonists’ favor, the company went on an app-banning spree in February targeting apps with bikini-level sexual content. (Although a few established news brands like Sports Illustrated were allowed to remain.)
It’s also an example of the alarm bells some critics of the app store system were sounding in the lead-up to the release of the iPad. Brian Chen at Wired warned publishers to consider questions of independence, in light of a controversy over Apple’s vague policy on sexual content. And several German news orgs like Bild and Stern have already seen Apple get into the business of banning certain editorial content from the App Store.
Fiore has not resubmitted his app, saying he’d heard about the experiences of others cartoonists and wasn’t in a position to get into a fight with Apple. Still, he has a hunch Apple will eventually change its mind on him, as it has with other cartoon apps. “They seem so much more innovative and smarter than that,” he told me.
Apple did not respond to my request for comment on its satire policy, or Fiore’s case in particular.
Apple is so big and everybody go crazy about new iPad and their other stuff (even if there is no Flash, no USB, so much expensive… )
“They seem so much more innovative and smarter than that”
Apple is great but they are too close.
Don’t buy Apple products. There are alternatives.
>>>Brian Chen at Wired warned publishers
In 2010. This crap has been going on since I first raised the alarm in 2008 — and I continue to scream about it in 2010.
Apple Forfeits eBooks By Banning A Comic Book!
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/apple-forfeits-ebooks-by-banning-a-comic-book/
Banned because it “ridicules public figures.” This must be part of Apple’s plan to expand it’s business into North Korea.
Shame on you Steve Jobs for turning the App Store into The Ministry of Acceptable Thoughts.
Stop making Obama look like a freakin monkey!
How can a cartoon whose subject is political satire be banned but podcasts from O’Reilly, John Stewart and Obermann are not banned? They all attack politicians to varying degrees.
To all people who ’satirically’ draw black people out there. It is not only offensive to black people to draw them as monkeys but it’s also offensive to monkeys everywhere around the world to have humans drawn in their liking so as to ridicule the way monkeys look.
Please leave us monkeys and black people around the world alone.
to those getting their knickers in a twist regarding their view of the Obama cartoon image as somewhat simian: get the hell over it! we’re all (ALL, all humans) ..are all evolved naked tail-less monkeys. If Obama’s slightly sticky-out ears, and dark skin make cartoons of him look more monkeyish than average -to you or anyone else, tough luck. Did the British get upset at the jugg-eared monkeyness of Prince Charles as portrayed by the Spitting Image puppetteers, did they heck!! worry not, there’s better things!!
Come to Android…where’s its nice, free, and open.
As for Obama being drawn like a monkey comments…I’m sure these people had no problem with Bush being drawn the same way.
Apple in this case is a store and has a legal right to decide what they will carry. And even to change their minds. Just as much as I have a right not to carry Harry Potter, Twilight etc in my bookstore because I feel they are evil.
I’m not stopping you from going and buying “the devil’s literature” over at the Barnes and Noble down the road. And Apple isn’t blocking you from going to another source such as the web for these cartoons, assuming of course they aren’t unsupported tech like Flash. And if Mr Fiore decides to sell his app on the gray market, you can install it so long as you understand that you may have forfeited your right to warranty service by Apple.
Steve Jobs will eventually succumb to whatever it is that ails him, and I suspect that within a year or so from then, Apple will relax.
The ridiculous thing is that YouTube has an app that displays tens of thousands of videos that are offensive, but they have an app. Perhaps there’s a distinction between proprietary and user-created content, but that seems odd. Why create enemies by doing this? Why not just let the app market work it out? Really bizarre business behavior in a 2.0 world.
All one has to do is compare the reality of the world with the phantasy of Apple’s feel good advertising along with the twisted knicker approach to current social mores as evinced on the day iTunes launched January 9, 2001. That day I thought- cool! what do they have by, say, Miles Davis? Well, that day and today they have the album B*****s Brew. A shining example of “Think Different” Miles must be rollin’ in his grave.
As for Mark Fiore’s work which I’ve followed for at least as long, the saint’s forfend that a cracker customer’s dollars don’t wend their way to Steve’s coffers because of a political slight.
If I understand this correctly, it is an app that downloads content from the Internet and displays it on iDevices. In this case, they are not selling a downloadable cartoon. The objectionable content is not in the App. If Apple is going to ban this, why don’t they just strip Safari off every iDevice. I bet I could find much more objectionable content with a web browser.
The flaw in Apple’s approach is that by making themselves the guardians of decency, if they slip up and some adult material slips into the system through an app, they are potentially opening themselves up to more liability. The App Store, is not like a traditional retailer. It’s more like a marketplace or a consignment shop. It’s more eBay than Wall Mart. Apple does not buy copies of apps wholesale and resell them. It provides a conduit for App creators to sell directly to customers, and apple get’s a cut of the sale. But rather than being a common carrier like an ISP, by policing content Apple is editorializing, setting themselves up as publishers, and taking responsibility for the content. If they were smart they would just ban anything that may be illegal and stick a disclaimer on apps saying they may contain offensive material and that Apple is not responsible for content.
What monkey? I don’t see any monkey. I think some overly-sensitive people are imagining a monkey in that clearly human-looking Obama caricature.
IMO if you wanna see a monkey drawing of a president, look at the political cartoons they did of Bush. Now THAT guy looks like a monkey!
Welcome all to the SICK world of professional anti-Apple propaganda.
As someone pointed out Apple doesn’t ban right-wing hate speech from media it carries. Nor does it censor Mark Fiore’s work for users of its home computers. So what makes mobile apps any different?
As someone else said, after Jobs, their business plan will change.
@zato: People, yourself probably included, care enough about Apple to want it to stop stupid, patronizing, and obnoxious practices. You got a problem with that? What other large corporations would you care to defend against negative public opinion after they have crossed some sensitive line?
@Todd: You hit the nail on the head. Thank you for explaining what is wrong with this picture.
Your App rejected as it “ridicules public figures”?
It would appear Apple has had a satire bypass: indeed, what are public figures for if not ridicule?
This is particularly ridiculous given that Apple did accept an application for Stephen Colbert’s ‘The Word’ segment, which I’d say also belongs in the genre of political satire, including humorous truth-telling about public figures.
I’m losing respect for Apple by the minute.
Yawn.
This is newsworthy? It’s been happening since day 1. If any i* users are surprised, they really need to do some basic research before buying any i* products.
*cough*Android*cough**cough*
135,000 apps… figure it out.
So who is going to organize that boycott?
Apple is becoming more and more like the Microsoft of the past and in the corner, there’s Google with a huge grin on it’s face coz they know Apple is making it very very easy for Android to send them crashing on a downward spiral. Apple is almost acting like North Korea or China here and is bound to fail because more and more people are turning against them. They don’t need to do this and I hope they fail coz any corporation that tries to kill its competitors and become a monopoly at any cost deserves to fail spectacularly.
Pretty good coming from a company that produces commercials that make PC owners look like idiots in brown suites.
“Im a Mac and Im a PC…”
P.S.
Go Android
XD
Do you mind, if I translate this article into German and blog it on my site? – I’m a cartoonist and Apple’s politics are quite relevant for my business… Not only that they bully Flash – now they are even censoring content as I used to know it back in the old days of the GDR (East Germany)… I’d leave a link to your site – Also I’d like to use one of the screenshots. Regards Jens
Is this intentionally dishonest? Is it knee-jerk panic? Is it just moronic? It must be one or a combination of these. No matter what it is totally wrong.
Apple is not a governmental organization. It is not censoring the Web or the internet and couldn’t even if it wanted to. Fiore has had and continues to have countless outlets for his cartoons.
Apple sets standard for it’s products and how they work. To do this they must specify how 3rd-party content look and runs on its products. They can’t and don’t control free speech or even software sales anywhere but on their devices. This is totally constitutional and legal. It is also quite simple to understand.
A content or app provider might be frustrated that Apple will not let them make a living selling their objectionable, buggy, unsecure, or even boring creations on Apple devices but they are free to sell elsewhere. There’s no constitutional right to sell Apple hardware. Apple is not the government.
If you need an simpler example, think of Apple as an newspaper publisher and editor. Publisher/editor together decide what does and doesn’t get put into the dead-tree paper. Apple is no different.
Try to wrap your mind around these simple concepts and dispense with the panic and dishonesty about Apple.
Is this intentionally dishonest? Is it knee-jerk panic? Is it just woefully uninformed? It must be one or a combination of these. No matter what it is totally wrong.
Apple is not a governmental organization. It is not censoring the Web or the internet and couldn’t even if it wanted to. Fiore has had and continues to have countless outlets for his cartoons.
Apple sets standard for it’s products and how they work. To do this they must specify how 3rd-party content look and runs on its products. They can’t and don’t control free speech or even software sales anywhere but on their devices. This is totally constitutional and legal. It is also quite simple to understand.
A content or app provider might be frustrated that Apple will not let them make a living selling their objectionable, buggy, non-secure, or even boring creations on Apple devices but they are free to sell elsewhere. There’s no constitutional right to sell Apple hardware. Apple is not the government.
If you need an simpler example, think of Apple as an newspaper publisher and editor. Publisher/editor together decide what does and doesn’t get put into the dead-tree paper. Apple is no different.
Try to wrap your mind around these simple concepts and dispense with the panic and dishonesty about Apple.
P.S. It’s ironic how certain offensive words are censored from comments on this site.
@G:
When you consider the fact Apple is one of the biggest players in the mobile industry, the fact they censor content like this is hugely detrimental in the fight against censorship. It’s not just this, they have been censoring a lot of things and trying to starve off pretty much everyone else these days. It’s very wrong and worrying. I thought these guys were the epitome of coolness at one time and for them to end up like this is hugely disappointing.
This device isn’t useful if it’s a “store”. I am not buying a separate tablet for each “store”. A device that allows me access to content of my choosing would be useful. Guess I’m still waiting.
Sorry, I can’t support a company that suppresses innovation, competition and free expression any more. Not in this day and age.
Who Are The Brain Police?
I think apple has gone overboard in their zeal to sell to the family market. In this case I wonder if the concern was the caricatures of Obama that brings to mind racist portrayals of blacks in the U.S. I don’t see them having a problem with making fun of the white house party crashes or Balloon Boy. Nonetheless, as an Apple fan I am concerned about their attempts to control speech, even if it done legally within the confounds of their “sandbox”.
Apple is also quite inconsistent. In the Netherlands, many people have the App to access the daily cartoons of “Fokke & Sukke” on their iPhones and iPods (enter “fok” in the search box of Apple’s AppStore).
The main characters are a pair of explicitly male birds, and most installments “ridicule public figures” in a often quite, how shall we put it, robust way.
See http://www.foksuk.nl/nl?cm=79%2C218%2C225&action=dossier&dos_id=6&c_id=4040 for a sample–better not translate it…
Does the word Android take on a special meaning????
Mark Fiore is a far left nut case. You have to be a far left nut case to get a Pulitzer Prize. They should rename it the “Far Left Nut Prize.” I wish the entire Internet would ban him.
@Ronin/G: Get a clue. nobody is saying it’s illegal. They’re saying it’s WRONG. Something doesn’t have to be illegal to be wrong.
And, coming from the supposedly rebel Apple, with all their “Think Different” ads and such, this censorship is a bit ludicrous. Plain and simple, censorship’s what it is. They rejected the app not because it’s buggy, but because it was “objectionable” in content. But who gets to decide that?
It’s wrong because people who have iphones or ipads can ONLY get this content from the app store, since flash has been vilified by Apple as well. So without allowing the app through, nobody on that iphone platform can get this content. It’s a bad business model and a bad way of treating your loyal customers, many of whom are loathe to go to another product but will eventually if Apple keeps thinking that they should be the Thought Police.
I am a huge Apple fangirl, btw, but I would never own an iphone or ipad for this very reason. I should have the right to put whatever content (not talking about buggy programs here, but actual CONTENT) I want on my already-paid-for technology, and if they refuse me that right, I will go elsewhere.
Oh, and it’s especially dumb in this case, as these are satirical political cartoons. They allow other political opinion apps in their store, on both sides. Maybe winning a Pulitzer will help them change their minds (hypocrites — big sellers have always been allowed to be “objectionable”).
Bingo! The paragraph transition, paragraph 4, “But there’s just one problem” is not only the story of Fiore, but the bigger story of how news and commentary will continue to face distribution challenges. Thanks McGann.
Let’s see, over 100k apps as of last October. That means reviewing over 100 apps per day since June 2008. On average, how many lines of code need to be examined for each app, scores’s, hundreds, more? But, no problem, none of these developers would try to slip something by the people that most certainly are working long hours to make sure some knucklehead is not trying to to sneak inappropriate stuff into Jr.s download.
Of course as soon as that happens, Jr.s parents will sit side by side on Nancy Grace weeping over Jr.’s trauma looking for a check.
Poor, poor Pulitzer Prize winner, the world is most definitely NOT fair, but you know that, I’m sure you’ve drawn it up.
Fiore is a far left lunatic. No wonder the left gave him pulitzer prize.
Clearly I am doing something wrong.
I am the editorial cartoonist for The Economist.
I had my cartoon app approved by Apple about 4 weeks ago (just before the Fiore ordeal). It has over 150 satirical cartoons that target Obama, Bush and a slew of international figures. Yet somehow it was not rejected by the satire filter at Apple.
Was I not scathing enough? Do need to draw my noses bigger? Improve my trenchant-to-humor ratio?
Does getting a iPhone app mean I am not a worthy practitioner?
Maybe if I re-submit my app with some unpleasant Mohammed cartoons I can hope for a better outcome…
You can view the app here: http://www.appstorehq.com/ikalbook-iphone-187865/app
Kal
Apple is too closed. I will never buy any apple products.
Apple, like Google, Yahoo, MSN et al., has been so focussed on accomodating and faciltating the fascist, thuggish regime here in China that it has forgotten the very values and freedoms that allowed it to succeed in the first place. This is an example of its censorship policy that was born in Peking, far from its ostensible HQ. Who does Apple serve?