Google Removes Nazi and Hitler Theme From the Android Market

[mrdroid]

Google isn't the leader of the free world. They are a company. By extension of their Android Market they would have condoned such a theme by allowing it to stay on the market. If you just look at it from a business perspective they again... made the correct decision. Many people benefit if they take it down. No one benefits if they leave it up. No one that matters anyway.

 

[blumpkinblake]

Hitler and the Nazi ideals need to be erased from the face of the earth, By far the most vile man to ever walk the earth.

Nero was pretty bad to.

 

[blamejake]

Bottom line - this is Google's playground and they can pull ANYTHING they want. Period. If you don't like it, start your own market. There's no slippery slope or any such crap - it's Google's storefront and they allow whatever they want in their store's window.

You wanna Nazi, Stalin app - go to the Nazi, Stalin store. If Google decides to pull Tinker Bell apps, Mother Teresa apps, or Mom-And-Apple-Pie apps, so what. You want Tinker Bell apps or Mother Teresa apps or Mom-And-Apple Pie apps, then Google them and find out who has 'em and buy/download from their respective markets. Sheesh!

 

[BuglessFan]

They can. This kind of stuff is about as extreme as hate gets. I'm just more comfortable having actual users decide rather than the company. I'll be one of the people showing up to throw dog poop at the Klan as they march by if they ever dared to try to parade in my town. I'd also vote against anyone that denied them the right to do so. Allowing things you hate to exist doesn't mean you endorse them. Avoiding them and responding to them are sane and normal reactions. Private companies and places ALWAYS have the right to bar those words/images/ideas. Google is within their rights to do so. That said, I wish instead they didn't, but DID allow us a means to either create our own set of things to block or made a good API for developers to provide free or for fee filtering of the muck that's out there. I don't want to see smut when I browse for games either, but I'd rather that than see it simply blocked for those that don't share my morality or views. Ideally I could tailor the filtering to fit my own views, and others could too.

Again, this is one of the furthest out there lines that there is, and almost every sane person would agree with banning it. Clearly though, there's at least one ogre who made it/wanted it. The problem is when do you decide that enough people are offended to do it? Do you pull the Quran and prayer apps because they offend 911 survivors? Where exactly do you stop once you have decided to start? That's the rub.

 

[aminaked]

There's no slippery slope or any such crap - it's Google's storefront and they allow whatever they want in their store's window.

We know Google is allowed to manage their store as they see fit. It's a slippery slope because this opens the door to the politically correct police complaining to Google about other apps. Google will have to draw the line somewhere.

Example: someone could complain to Google that there are images of women in the market. Their faces should be covered by burkas if they are in public. In some places of the world, this makes total sense. If we go around censoring stuff just so people aren't offended, what do we have left?

I'm just standing up for freedom of speech and freedom of expression. I'm American, so I guess that stuff's important to me. In your country, things might be different.

That being said, I support Google's decision as I have said before. I'm just wondering where this might lead.

 

[Psychokitty]

Google is a corporation and as such, it doesn't have to follow any laws about censorship in it's app market. As a business owner, albeit a teeny-tiny one, I'd have to say that the "Shake the Baby" Apple app might have kept some mommies from buying that phone for their teen-aged kids. It's all about marketing. Did the existence, however short, of that that app make the iPhone any less of a phone? -Nope. But it may have caused a tiny bit of subconscious interference with the voice of reason in the backs of some potential consumers' minds. -Ya know, like whatever the hell possessed anyone to vote for Bush a second time...
Is the Nazi app getting yanked an act of censorship? -No, I don't believe it is. I think it's Google just keeping their bed clean.

Personally, I think that if Google opened the floodgates to completely unregulated apps in their market with no filtering, the whole app market concept would fall right in the crapper. Kids buy these phones, on their parents' plans. That's a HUGE chunk of market, and mommies & daddies wouldn't much like it if, for the sake of the first amendment, their kids could download porn apps straight from Google's app market onto their shiny new Droid Xs.
I, for one, would not want to have to wade through a swamp of gay porn to find a fitness app, for example.

...I also wouldn't mind seeing that swastika on someone else's phone. I would rather know up front that he was a psycho than find out later after I've been chatting with him, and be left wondering just how much about myself I told him by the time I found out he was a Nazi sympathizer!
I like it when people wear their crazy idealisms on their sleeves. It makes it easier to know who to avoid.

 

[Asperity]

It's a slippery slope because this opens the door to the politically correct police complaining to Google about other apps. Google will have to draw the line somewhere.

Slippery slope is, by definition, an informal fallacy.

 

[aminaked]

It's a slippery slope because this opens the door to the politically correct police complaining to Google about other apps. Google will have to draw the line somewhere.

Slippery slope is, by definition, an informal fallacy.

You might be right because I have no idea what you're talking about. Slippery slope, opening the door for more, rotten apple. Forget the expressions. I'm not trying to do a philosophical proof here.

What else will Google deem unholy? That's my question. So far:
1)tatas
2)Nazis

On a side note, I find it hypocritical that Google will accept money for adult ads but will not allow adult sites to run Google ads on their sites. Am I bitter?

 

[Purple Hayes]

I agree with google removing "Creature Apps". And to be honest i wouldnt be bothered with google removing more of those garbage spam like apps that appear with every search . However i do enjoy apps like the free wireless tether and other root access only apps. I have benefitted from Google's less than thorough approach to censorship, however i'd be willing to sacrifice in order for the OS to be something im proud of and not disgusted with because of ignorant devs that think there being "Obscenely" funny.

 

[*22899]

I have to say an early poster is was dead on. If they leave it and there is no news about it, we don't talk about it. I only first learned about it here at DF. I don't understand why this would become a hot topic. Only if you searched for Dora the explorer or NFL and got a nazi theme should this be a problem.

I'm vary Pro Marijuana and some of you aren't. If I search the market for Marijuana I get Marijuana apps. If I don't search for Marijuana I get what I'm looking for.

So everyone go burn one and forget about this useless theme and the idiots that put it out there. If I get a warning for talking about smoking weed in a nazi thread that will be awesome.

 

[mcatdtDroid]

Hitler was NOT the most evilman in history, he just got caught. Ask stalin who was doing the exact same thing. Should the communist hammer and sickle also be censored.

But another point was made that supercedes this...google is a private company. They are under no obligation to be "fair" or even give a reason when it comes to censoring.

Saying "hitler should be erased from history" is an incredibly ignorant statement as ugly evil history is still history that can be learned from.

Maybe japans attack on pearl harbor should be erased too...

 

[Psychokitty]

Hitler was NOT the most evilman in history, he just got caught. Ask stalin who was doing the exact same thing. Should the communist hammer and sickle also be censored.

We can piss-contest who has the top spot in "Worst Scumbag Evar" for years. If you write a book about it you'll be amongst thousands of authors on the subject. It's NOT what this thread is about, as you made clear you already understand by this ray of hope...

But another point was made that supercedes this...google is a private company. They are under no obligation to be "fair" or even give a reason when it comes to censoring.

-And then when I think we can talk about the apps market again, -Back to La-La land with this...

Saying "hitler should be erased from history" is an incredibly ignorant statement as ugly evil history is still history that can be learned from.

Maybe japans attack on pearl harbor should be erased too...

The quote was...

Hitler and the Nazi ideals need to be erased from the face of the earth...

Oh well. Screw it. Let's just rant about stupid **** instead.:icon_ banana:

 

[aminaked]

DON'T GO OFF THE DEEP END. HITLER SUCKS. Here goes:

What if some* Hitler/Nazi ideals were not bad?

*maybe NONE were, OK. Just relax. I'm just asking a simple question.

 

[TimChgo9]

Hitler was NOT the most evilman in history, he just got caught. Ask stalin who was doing the exact same thing. Should the communist hammer and sickle also be censored.

But another point was made that supercedes this...google is a private company. They are under no obligation to be "fair" or even give a reason when it comes to censoring.

Saying "hitler should be erased from history" is an incredibly ignorant statement as ugly evil history is still history that can be learned from.

Maybe japans attack on pearl harbor should be erased too...

Wow.. what a statement. Hitler, and his Nazi Party were just about the most vile force on the face of this earth. I have devoted most of my life to the study of the Second World War, and I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, that Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Streicher, Goering, Heydrich and a whole host of others were the embodiment of evil, and that is hyperbole either.

How much of the history of the Germany, the Nazi Party ("Nazi" was a shoretened version of the party's full name NSDAP National Socialist Deutches Arbeits Partei, or National Socialist German Workers Party)and Hitler have you read? If you don't think Hitler was the most evil man history, I have some books I can reccommend that you read. "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William L. Shirer is a good one.

Anyway, names like Belzec, Auschwitz, Treblinka, Drancy, Sobibor, Westerbork, Chelmno, and Bergen-Belsen among others will live on in infamy because of what his regime did in those places.

Did you know, that when Hitler took power in Germany, and after the Nuremburg Laws of 1935, that Jews and other non-Aryans were banned from practicing law, and medicine, were stripped of any honoraries (degrees, medals, etc.) were not allowed to teach, play music in any "Aryan" orchestra, they had their radios, appliances, telephones, cars, bicycles, and any other form of transportation confiscated, they could not own property, they could not even sit on a bench in a public park, in fact, they were banned from swimming pools, beaches, resorts, parks, stores, historical monuments, museums, and any other public gathering place. They were allowed to shop only one hour a day, they were subject to beatings, arrest, their businesses were confiscated, and sold, and they were not allowed to keep the profits, they were expropriated of anything but the clothes on their backs. By 1942, when the "Final Solution" was in full swing, the Jews were crammed into dirty, overcrowded ghettos in Lublin, Lodz, and Warsaw,and the only thing they had to look forward to was an end in the gas chambers, a slave laborer, or in front of a machine gun. German SS squads would clear whole villages of Jews during the offensive against Russia, and shoot them, torture them, and do whatever they pleased to them. Hitler regarded the Jews as a "pestilence" not worthy of being human.

Read Nazi Germany and the Jews by Saul Friedlander, it's a two volume work 1933 to 1939 the Years of Persecution and 1939 to 1945 The Years of Extermination as a survivor of the anti-Jewish pogroms and a concentration camp, Mr. Friedlander writes and incredibly detailed and researched history of the Holocaust that will probably become the standard work on the subject. The depths to which the Nazi's sank is an incredible, and incredibly frightening and dark part of history.

I for one am glad that Google got rid of the theme. NOTHING good came from the Nazis, nothing at all. They represent evil, and hate and nothing more.

 

[aminaked]

banned from practicing law, and medicine, were stripped of any honoraries (degrees, medals, etc.) were not allowed to teach, play music in any "Aryan" orchestra, they had their radios, appliances, telephones, cars, bicycles, and any other form of transportation confiscated, they could not own property, they could not even sit on a bench in a public park, in fact, they were banned from swimming pools, beaches, resorts, parks, stores, historical monuments, museums, and any other public gathering place. They were allowed to shop only one hour a day, they were subject to beatings, arrest, their businesses were confiscated, and sold, and they were not allowed to keep the profits, they were expropriated of anything but the clothes on their backs.

In a way, this sounds like censorship.

I think I'm going to bow out of this discussion. It started out breaking Godwin's law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia so that's bad juju. In my defense, if anyone was offended by what I wrote, please note that I was trying to make a simple point about censorship. I'm sorry if you were offended. See you on the forums.