The 500px mobile app, which went live on Apple’s App store about 16 months ago and has been downloaded a million times, was suddenly removed from the store on January 22 over a violation of terms. Apple released the following statement through The Verge in which the company stated that “The app was removed from the App Store for featuring pornographic images and material, a clear violation of our guidelines. We also received customer complaints about possible child pornography. We’ve asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app.”
The move from Apple has some people scratching their heads because the Cupertino company’s very own web browser Safari can easily search nude images. The move has led to some criticism about Apple for removing 500px app. Moreover, in response to Apple’s statement, 500px founder, Evgeny Tchebotarev said that, “We’ve never ever, since the beginning of the company, received a single complaint about child pornography. If something like that ever happened, it would be reported right away to enforcement agencies.”
It was also reported that Toronto-based app development company produced an update of the 500px app, which did not make nude images easily available, but it was knocked down by an Apple reviewer. According to TechCrunch, “The Apple reviewer told the company that the update couldn’t be approved because it allowed users to search for nude photos in the app. This is correct to some extent, but 500px had actually made it tough to do so, explains Tchebotarev.
New users couldn’t just launch the app and locate the nude images, he says, the way you can today on other social photo sharing services like Instagram or Tumblr, for instance. Instead, the app defaulted to a “safe search” mode where these type of photos were hidden. To shut off safe search, 500px actually required its users to visit their desktop website and make an explicit change. Tchebotarev said the company did this because they don’t want kids or others to come across these nude photos. “Some people are mature enough to see these photos,” he says, “but by default it’s safe.”
Source: TechVibes, TechCrunch
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