If I heard a joke about naughty toys in a movie? Or some good friends made fun of me while out drinking and said something like that? Sure, no problem.
But in a finance app? Not okay. If I'm trusting this company's app to manage my finances, they should show a professional level of distance and respect, and not have some robot joking about my sex life. It's personal, it's potentially insulting, and it's in a context where this kind of subject should be left alone.
And that's saying nothing of the fact that in countries like Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Qatar, people are probably not anywhere near as open about sexuality as we are in the United States and Europe. If you want to market a product in those countries you should respect that.
> If you want to market a product in those countries you should respect that.
They should. But here's the problem: the subset of things that offend any country in the world, is the superset.
And the cultural and moral values applied, are not 'international'. They are extremely American. And some of the things it outlaws, may be a crucial part of the identity of another culture.
There are cultures that consider females not wearing a headscarf, to be offensive. There are cultures that treat blood (even in cartoon form) like the US would treat a nipple, like Germany. There are cultures, that will be offended, just because the store is open on Sunday.
I live in Holland. We consider Apple's App Store to represent Christian fundamentalism. That's how we call that set of moral values.
Apple risks getting sued for discimination and 'promoting hate', by publishing those guidelines. I wonder what they'll do, when they see that reaction.
No, it's not offensive at all. But software can cast a net across seven billion people and there are plenty who would be upset at the idea of even the slightest innuendo. It's irrational, it's not fun, and it's kind of a sad commentary on humanity, but these are the rules of the game.
The rules themselves can also be offensive. I know Apple blocked the free streaming app of the public tv here in holland originally.
The government was pissed, and considering legislation because the fact the app was not allowed was considered to be offensive. The app is allowed now, as an 18+ app.
And honestly, thats what we should do. Sue, legislate and full out war of the whole concept of these kind of policies. Stores playing culture police sounds like part of a dysotopian nightmare.
And the rules are so so so American. Sex is bad. Violence is good. Lying about products is allowed, but oh dear if kids get to see a niple.
The weird thing is, i doubt Apple realizes just how offensive their guidelines are themselves. Ah well, thell have their day in court.
I was close to being offended before I realized that it was supposed to be an offhand joke. And then I was still a little offended, and I can see how some people really would not like that said about them.
edit: i'm trying to explain what about it offends me. I guess that it's making assumptions about my sexuality which is pretty personal, or making light of my sexuality which is pretty important.
1. It's a finance app, not the internet. 2. I go to church on a regular basis, does that mean I can't visit the internet as well? 3. You seem very insensitive to people who are different from you. 4. I don't generally go around the internet whining about every little thing. But amishforkfight specifically asked who would be offended, and I said, me.
The offensive content problem may even have something to do with the appearance of their "monster" character being confusingly similar to typical portrayals of the devil (red character with horns), which itself is can be an offensive image in many cultures regardless of context. That's why feedback is so important in these review processes, especially with something so subjective.
As an aside, the devil thing isn't isolated to non-Western countries either. Linda Branagan famously recalls one instance of where the BSD "Daemon" mascot, which also looks devil-like, nearly got her into real trouble in Texas: http://rmitz.org/freebsd.daemon.html
Reading this story, its interesting how similar Texas and some places in middle east can be. Dust, deserts, oil, lots of guns, and... fanatics (to avoid calling them fundamentalists).
Malaysian here. We do have a large, extremely devout conservative demographic here, so I can see why Microsoft would choose to be on the safe side. Plenty of foreign artistes were banned from holding concerts here due to perceived lack of morals.
On the other hand, our newspapers regularly publish raunchier content without much fanfare.
In Malaysia's case, it's more because of the way race and by association religion is split almost 50-50 among the local population.
The result is that Malaysia has a large enough non-Muslim population to avoid becoming a full-blown theocracy like Saudi Arabia, but still have a large enough religious base to be considered a 'conservative' country.
