‘Excessively objectionable or crude’: Apple’s strange dance with drone app
APPLE has repeatedly rejected an iPhone app which reports on deaths from US covert drone strikes labelling it “excessively objectionable or crude”.
APPLE has temporarily backed down and accepted a somewhat controversial app which lets people receive notifications when the United States carries out a covert drone attack.
It was created by data US journalist at The Intercept, Josh Begley as somewhat of a social experiment to see if people in his country actually wanted to know about the government’s war tactics, but the tech giant has struggled to come to terms with the app.
It has previously been rejected multiple times by Apple and prevented from appearing in its app store for iPhone and iPad users on the grounds that it was “excessively objectionable or crude.”
The app, called Metadata, sends push notifications to your smartphone every time a US covert drone attack is reported in the news.
However the acceptance appears to be very short lived as Apple removed the app just hours after accepting it, much to the chagrin of its creator.
“The app didn’t include graphic images or video of any kind — it simply aggregated news about covert war,” Mr Begley wrote.
“At its core was a question: do we want to be as connected to our foreign policy as we are to our smartphones? My hypothesis was no. Americans don’t care about the drone war because it is largely hidden from view.”
According to him, Apple actually accepted the app back in 2014 after rejecting it five times. It sat in the app store for about a year and was reportedly downloaded roughly 50,000 times before the company suddenly deleted it. Since then, Apple has rejected the app 12 times before the momentary acceptance this week.
@ggreenwald @joshbegley screenshotted the home page just now. Very objectionable content. pic.twitter.com/uajBUWOrM6
— Hussain (@Chemzes) March 28, 2017
The Intercept was co-founded by polarising journalist Glen Greenwald who was the main recipient of the NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden about mass US government surveillance.
Greenwald and his publication routinely report on American foreign policy, government surveillance and secret US drone strikes.
Prior to the app being pulled once again, some on social media has wondered whether politics has played a part in Apple’s inconsistent approach to allowing the app.
@RealSteveCox @joshbegley No evidence that that happened, but it's a fair question.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 28, 2017
“I think the story of this app is about more than a petty conflict with Apple. It is about what can be seen — or obscured — about the geography of our covert wars,” Mr Begley said.
According to research by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, more than 7000 people were killed during Mr Obama’s tenure by US soldiers controlling drones inside rooms far from any war zone.
Of those, the bureau suggests almost 900 have been civilians, including as many as 110 children.
Jennifer Hunt from the US Studies Centre at ANU believes the public would be surprised at the number of drone casualties.
“These numbers are very difficult to pin down. Overall the numbers are higher than the public would realise,” she told news.com.au in November.
“The average from different observers would be around 500 strikes, around 4000 casualties, including around 500 civilians. The problem is that we don’t know how the government categorises combatants and non-combatants,” she said.
President Trump has significantly broadened the CIA’s authority in carrying out deadly drone strikes since taking office.
Militia groups in countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa where US drone strikes are concentrated have long changed their tactics as the battleground in the war on terror is shifting from boots on the ground to unmanned planes in the air.
For instance, a sheet with 22 tips on how to avoid drones such as camouflaging cars was found left behind by the Islamic extremists as they fled northern Mali from a French military intervention in 2013.
Originally published as ‘Excessively objectionable or crude’: Apple’s strange dance with drone app
