Apple and the Confederate Flag.
 

So Apple took a stance against the Confederate Flag by removing most apps from their App Store that make use of it.

Their official statement is that "[they] have removed apps from the App Store that use the Confederate flag in offensive or mean-spirited ways, which is in violation of our guidelines. We are not removing apps that display the Confederate flag for educational or historical uses."

Despite this, civil war themed games have been removed from the store for featuring the flag. Developers are required to update their games by either removing the flag or create a fictionalized version of the flag.

http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-remov...-flag-imagery/

Thoughts on the Apple's decision and or the flag itself? Discuss.

IMO, Apple has always been overzealous when dealing with what they deem inappropriate imagery. Arguably civil war games can be used for educational purposes. Strategy games is where I discovered my passion for history. No company should cater to political correctness at the expense of historical inaccuracy. You can either face the past, understand the wrongdoings committed and move forward or pretend the issue never existed.

:rolleyes:

Yeah I agree Apple is just hopping on the bandwagon but to understand this situation we need to know how things went to **** like this.

The Media.

The ****ing media does a horrifically amazing job at brainwashing people and getting them to sharpen their pitchforks and light their torches.

See, when that psychotic white kid murdered those 9 people at Charleston, the media first covered that story and then almost immediately pointed the finger at something almost completely irrelevant, in this case the fact that the kid was holding a Confederate flag in one ****ing photograph.

Oh? Like we didn't already know this kid was a racist maniac with a gun and killer intentions?

Nah, "Lets just point the finger at some piece of cloth and forget the murderous psychopath responsible for the crime. As long as the people all band up with us, thing'll be fine."

Now you've got the entire nation riled up against one another because of a stupid flag. Ironically, during his interrogation, Dylann Roof claimed he murdered those 9 people in order to start a race war.

Well whether we ****ing like it or not, his main goal has been nearly achieved by a bunch of ******s with cameras and microphones.

Now total disclaimer; I really don't support Confederate flag, I'd be much happier seeing it gone than still here. To me, its the equivalent of the Swastika and everyone claiming it is important to their heritage can just eat a ****. Heritage my ***, their "heritage" is a bunch of white guys who enslaved humans and then lost an entire war to it. Some heritage.

The fact that the media managed to stir the entire nation into one ****fest of a national debate is just appalling to me.

But of course, this is America and everything we do here somehow manages to contradict something else done before.

So here's Apple caring for all those people against the Confederate flag while secretly asking them to buy their newest iPhone.

Jobs-sama, you will be dearly missed.

good for them

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/...can-flag-down/

F**K the confederate flag, down with the American flag. Preach faruka kan :D



Apple gains more from joining the bandwagon, so I don't see anything wrong. At the end of the day they're a business and they're going to make whatever decision is best for business.


As far as 5hifts rant goes, that's the medias job. BS people to have them glued to the tv. It's up to the individual person to educate themselves and get the correct facts.

The problem with the Confederate flag is that it doesn't really represent "heritage" or even "state's rights". While the Confederate flag was used in to some extent during the Civil War, it wasn't commonplace until several decades later—when the KKK begun to use it to rally their "cause".

Yeah, it's media sensationalism. They'd much rather point their fingers at a flag than the racist people carrying the flag (who are, incidentally, going to remain racist even without the flag). But I still certainly think the removal of the Confederate flag from stores is a positive change.

The Confederate flag was not originally a "racist" symbol. People think it is now because people overgeneralize everything associated with the American Civil War.

Their censoring everything
Wtf The internet is supposed to be a place of free thaught

The Confederate flag was used to represent a people that broke off from a nation in order to protect their "autonomy" in deciding whether or not they should be allowed to enslave human beings on the basis of their race and force them to submit to the rest of the population via unconditional labor. It was later used by the KKK as they marched to promote white supremacy and flew over them as they murdered, maimed, and slaughtered people solely because of their race.

Definitely not a racist symbol.

The flag's designer, W. T. Thompson, called it "The White Man's Flag", and also said: "As a people we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the white man over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematical of our cause." Also: "As a national emblem, it is significant of our higher cause, the cause of a superior race, and a higher civilization contending against ignorance, infidelity, and barbarism."

But regardless of its origins, I don't know if outright censorship of it (such as what Apple is doing) is the right call.

The swastika was a religious symbol before it was appropriated as a nazi icon. A symbol's (barely in this case) less offensive past doesn't change its modern connotations, or cancel out how offensive it is for so many people today.

Removing it from use in civil war games seems weird to me, but imo it is a step in the right direction regardless.

Shouldn't be removed from games set in the time period where they were used, especially considering most kids who play war based games on their iDevices probably won't even notice or understand/care about any of the flags.

Exposing kids to content that is racist without having them know that it is racist is not a good idea.

Racist or not, censoring history is not acceptable. History should be facts not biased opinion on what someone thinks is right or wrong, welcome to the real world.

But at the end of the day they are little flags on stupid mobile apps that literally nobody cares about, they have never caused any problems and they never will.

This.

The flag isn't what is racist, the context around it is. I could hang a confederate flag over my house if I wanted, and that doesn't make me a racist, or unpatriotic. Just like exposing children to images of confederate flags without telling them what it is won't silently turn them into little negro-hunting racists.

On the topic of Apple censoring it, they have the right to censor whatever the hell they want from their products. They don't want apps with confederate flags waving around in their App Store, good for them, to be honest that sounds incredibly logical to me.

When it comes down to it though, how much does anyone here actually care? Do you frequently look for American Civil War apps in the App Store? When I think about it, I don't give a damn if Apple doesn't like the Confederate Flag, it is completely irrelevant to me, and I would assume the same goes for most people; good example of people looking to get offended by something.

Like Colin said, censoring history is a terrible move to play.

The fact that a major company like Apple would use ignorance to fight ignorance just baffles me.

Sure, we don't agree on the same things, but there are facts out there that can't be changed and shouldn't be hidden.

Instead, people should be able to hold their opinions about those facts instead of just sweeping them under the rug. And those opinions should't be provided for you like napkins at a restaurant, you need to personally develop and defend your own opinion instead of listening to some voice coming out of a box.

There is nothing ignorant about what Apple did, nor are they really fighting anything. And it is obvious they aren't trying to hide the fact that the confederacy ever existed because they are total chill with apps that are educational about it.

So the *** u sayin?

The fact that Apple is dumb enough to want to remove the Confederate flag from ****ing video games just proves how ignorant they are.

How are they not fighting something if they just removed a factual piece of information from a totally irrelevant source?

What if Bethesda suddenly decided it was too racist to have the Swastika from Wolfenstein?

You're seriously not getting anywhere just by removing something, and the fact that Apple thinks this is the right thing to do just proves how bad things are going to go for them in the future.

You are literally rewording the same stupid ass text from your last post.

The point he is trying to make is that it was dumb to take it from games that revolve around the time the flag was used. Imagine a WW2 game without any swastikas. If they do this then there would be a push for every game that shows anything bad in our history(as people) to be removed.


Calm down cowboy
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/25/app.../#.zn3g4k:HW4V
read edit #2

i need to get out of America

I dunno guys, the Nazi flag is a pretty cool flag. Represents Germany rising up from the ashes of WW1 and making a name for itself. Has nothing to do with racism right???

wat ever shall I do without my daily playtime of historically accurate "Civil War:1862" on my iPhone 6

Well, that makes a lot more sense, but how do they go about deciding if it's used offensively or not? A lot of app developers who have their games pulled have been saying it was used for it's historical content but they still have to change it.

I just think it's a stupid change for a stupid reason, low grade attempt at PR karma. It's obvious they don't really care.

Well GG Apple for shaking off those LSD tablets.

I think it's one of those situations where they acted before really thinking about it. I would say most of them should get re-add it in the next couple days.

Good to see you calm down, media hater.

Understand my stupid ass text, dammit.

The post-war resurgence and use of the civil war redneck flag started in the 50's as a way of saying "my state is for segregation." Any post-war use of the flag is inherently racist because of this cultural connection.

Even if an individual waves/owns/displays a rebel flag for "historical" reasons it's still strange because regardless of the way they feel about it they're still waving an enemy flag.

I don't think the flag should be removed from fiction like games etc, but I don't think it has any real legitimate place in contemporary America.

I mean if you support an open rebellion against America and slavery sure wave the flag all you want... Jk asshats are the only people that still wave that thing around.

Someone strike a lawsuit on apple saying they are violating the 1st ammendment for this. You will win and make millions. Its going to happen.

you will lose and no lawyer will take this case unless you already have a substantial amount of money to cover their retainer

best of luck in future battles noble gamergater

They have all right to remove it, you should learn the law before giving out advice.

Figured why not put my 2 cents in.

The Confederate flag is just that; a flag. It was a battle flag. It didn't represent the Confederate States because it wasn't the flag for the Confederate States. That kind of blows that down. The US flag was flown over New York, where all slaves came in, for years, yet we still carry it over our heads, and the 13th amendment has been ratified in every state for quite some time now, so it shouldn't make a difference as it's in the past for everyone and every state has corrected it's wrongs long ago.

The big debate it seems now is what the Civil War was actually over. Some fun facts before I through in my opinion...
Like stated above, slave ships came in to New York, not the south. New York eventually decided they didn't want to partake in that anymore, so the south decided they would open their ports to it.
Along with the above, taxes had been passed that hindered the south more than the north, or benefited the north more than the south, through the south's profits. You have to understand this to know why the south said, initially, that they weren't going to aid the north any longer. This is what brought about the war.

The south decided they should establish their own laws, and their own trade rules, and their own taxes. The was devastating for the north, as most of the country's money was in the south. Abraham Lincoln bluntly admits he had no choice but war to save the north. He also bluntly admits if he could have fought the war without freeing a single slave he would have. He also planned to send slaves back to Africa, but those countries and tribes wouldn't take them back. He had openly spoke of working out a plan to send them to Central America, but he got shot before it could be completed. All this stuff about honest Abe is in his own speeches and writings, so go look it up if you doubt it. It's all right there in plain sight.

Slavery was a part of the war, and a large part of it, but it wasn't because of slavery. Slavery drove profit, profit endured in the South, and that profit carried to the North, while the North passed laws to make it easier on the North and more difficult on the South. The Fed government wasn't seeing eye to eye with the way taxes and such should work for the north and the south, so the south left.

Also the Confederate flag and statues of Confederate officers have flown and been placed all over the south for years and years, as well as long before the KKK or anything other racist organization decided to hijack something that wasn't theirs for their benefit out of pure ignorance (can we say the muslim case, where not all are extremist, not all confederate supporters are racists because of a few idiots?). Also to add in the end, it's good what happened as we're all free to be a human being, as it should be. State's rights are dwindling in this country though, and if you think this is anything but a plan to demoralize it further than you are missing the long term agenda of some politicians.

On the actual topic, Apple has the right to do it, and they will do what is profitable for them. They can make that choice not to carry something as a business.

tl;dr;
Yes, they can.

okay cool i'll call slim from BFM to get on this case

good history on the war of northern aggression thx

in 2015 apparently americans still don't know why the civil war was fought lmao

I defer to ta-nehisi coates (99% of this web sight will say "ah, a black person name" and not click)

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...s-over/396482/

I for one don't give a **** if its racist or not and I feel like if I want to sport a confederate flag I will.

That said, I don't. Because I believe in freedom of expression and I personally feel no need to wear something possibly offensive to others.

It irritated me when companies take it into their own hands. They really just escalate the issue.

Take me with u pls. we can go to spain

Then leave, it's not like America wants you.

Yet you'd probably pop a pimple from rage if you saw groups of people flying this down your street.

http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp.../isis-flag.jpg

Yes, how dare a company want to distance itself from racial hatred. They should leave it be because... like... free speech or something idk.

I would literally kill (or at-least detain) someone sporting an ISIS flag if I was definitely sure that's what it was. Noting that it is a organization the US is at war with, it is treason here to support it. I happen to be under oath to uphold that.
By the way, I got no pimples baby!

I live in Georgia, we have confederate flags all around. Racial hatred here is mostly black people discriminating white people, or whites hating on mexicans.

The thing is, black people and white people alike are both used to the flag being sported here. But they almost always get along splendidly.
Now that the entire country is trying to decide how to fix something that was not an issue, it has BECAME an issue and now everyone is getting all sensitive and taking sides over it.

All I am saying is all the attention brought to small matters is causing division. I don't see the world ever getting rid of racism because people are trying to detain our rights of freedom and expression. It is never going to work. People are not going to stop bearing the confederate flag because it's illegal. All that does is create complexity and tension between divided groups.

We need things that bring us together. Telling one side they aren't allowed to express themselves on something that is tied in with heritage is not going to make them change. You need to implement things that bring them together as a people, things that make them want to work together instead of resenting each other.

1) It's ISIL not ISIS

2)The flag has been around for nearly 15 years now, it's not just a 'terrorist' flag and it can be used by someone who has no violent intention and just supports the idea of an Islamic state. (or they may live in Canada/US and wish to have the flag as it is technically where they are from)

Example: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2...ice-criticised

You are actually right as sporting the flag without any intent or reason to suspect treason would technically be legal. However that is not going to favored by any police, courts, or authority here and they are very very very very likely to be taken and tried- for anything they could get.

ISIS and ISIL is actually pretty much the same thing. The distinction is not very great. In the context I used it makes sense, however governments and the UN have shifted to ISIL as their official terminology. To say I used the wrong terminology would depend on if I am formally addressing them or describing the region and movement.

Also, as a little fun fact, anyone with ISIS flags where I am is straight up getting shot no question. That's just the difference between the more libertarian and proactive north and the traditional deep south.

Either ISIL or ISIS can be used, they even use ISIS in the article you linked...

So freedom expression for you, but not for them. Got it.

So was the confederacy. You can't be this stupid, I think you are a troll.


Contradicting yourself in two sentences. You might be the biggest idiot on this forum.

I can't even right now. You're either a troll or still in school or something. I can't even be bothered to sift through the rest of your crap. ''They're used to a symbol that was designed to symbolise a nation which had a desire to dehumanise them, what consequences could this possibly have? keep it around, it's tradition!''

Kendama confirmed as biggest twat on graalians.

All this effort America puts in to prevent racism or the racist past (confederate flag) and things like this still go on, welp.

@Vendetta, the group has extended well beyond Syria and into the whole Levant which is why the S was replaced with L so technically speaking it's the proper way to address the group.

What I don't understand is why people still feel the need to be waving the confederate flag around at all. They were the enemy to the US. Why do people still support that?

There's not really a proper way to address the group as they refer to themselves as "Islamic State", the US use "ISIL" or "DAESH", other places and generally the media use "ISIS". The Arabic name for the group roughly translates to "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levanant/Great Syria" so like I said technically either one can be used.