Apple App Store Rejects Satirical Clinton Game Deemed ‘Offensive,’ Despite Dozens Of Anti-Trump Games

Hillary Clinton will be formally crowned the party's White House candidate at the Democrat
AFP

Apple has refused to publish a political satire game criticizing Hillary Clinton’s email deletion, after branding the game as “offensive” and “objectionable”, despite many graphic Trump games remaining on the platform.

“Capitol HillAwry,” created by Base 10 Games, describes itself as “a political satirical game where the objective is to collect as much money through email donations as possible while maintaining a decent approval rating in the polls”.

.Once you have booted up your server you will begin to receive various emails and spam. It is your objective to delete any confidential information off of the server by swiping the emails to the right. Removing confidential emails will improve your poll rating. You will also receive political donor emails, which will help earn you money. Be sure to swipe those to the left to respond. The more donations you take, the more your poll rating will go down and if you do nothing with the emails, they will eventually expire and have consequences.

The game is a comical take on the controversy surrounding Clinton’s deletion of over 30,000 emails during her term as Secretary of State, and the game works with the simple mechanic of swiping emails either left or right.

There is nothing offensive about the game, we have played it. However Apple has rejected the game not just once, but twice, after the developers appealed the first decision and even hired a “professional satire writer” for the project after being advised to by an employee at Apple.

“Your app contains content that is offensive and would be considered objectionable by many users, which is not allowed on the App Store” Apple responded last September when the developers attempted to submit the game for the first time. “Please remove all offensive and objectionable content from your app”.

The developer responded with a reference to Apple’s satire policy which clearly states “Professional political satirists and humorists are generally exempt from this requirement”.

An Apple employee then asked the developer for a private phone call.

“The phone conversation was very tense. She said that if I could find a “professional satire writer” to claim they wrote the content of the application, it could go on the store” said the developer John Matze in an email to Breitbart Tech.

“I found David Ross, a local conservative satire writer in San Diego, and a recipient of many satirical writing awards, to edit my content and talk to Apple as she requested. That is why I have a second submission to Apple in 2016. With his resume and contact information attached, and me following all of Apple’s rules outlined by 14.2 in their documentation, they still denied the application and completely ignored his credentials as a satire writer”.

In Apple’s second response, they specifically cited “mean spirited content” as the reason for the app’s rejection, despite the game being completely harmless.

Hello John,

We are writing to let you know the results of your appeal for your app, Capitol HillAwry.

The App Review Board evaluated your app and determined that the original rejection feedback for the current version of your app is valid.

Specifically, your app contains mean spirited content that can be considered offensive by many users. It would be appropriate to revise your app and remove all offensive content.

Therefore, your app will not be posted to the App Store at this time.

We hope you will consider making the necessary changes to be in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines and will resubmit your revised binary.

Despite labeling the Clinton email satire game as “mean spirited” and “offensive”, dozens of anti-Donald Trump games can be seen on the app store featuring highly graphic content.

“Trump Dump” is a game where the Republican presidential candidate is literally portrayed as a giant lump of faeces, and it’s been downloaded over a million times.

“Dump on Trump Twisty Wheel Edition” and “Dump on Trump Bird” are also published on the store, both featuring Trump being coated in bodily fluids one way or another.

A game featuring Trump where you have to avoid being pelted by fruit, and another app where you can punch the presidential candidate in the face are also available to download.

Matze is just one of many mobile developers currently suffering due to Apple’s extremely biased political satire policies, and he won’t be the last, but it appears Apple has formally joined the list of Silicon Valley companies who currently seem to favor Clinton just a little bit too much.

Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.

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