Re: 'Gay cure' Apple iPhone app: more than 80,000 complain
 

You're welcome.

Back on topic now?

Re: 'Gay cure' Apple iPhone app: more than 80,000 complain
 

It's an apt description of some Apple aficionados though ;)

Re: 'Gay cure' Apple iPhone app: more than 80,000 complain
 

i was just replying to a statement given

Re: 'Gay cure' Apple iPhone app: more than 80,000 complain
 

This saga just reminds me why having a hardware platform that is hostage to a single arbiter of what you can and can't do with it (ok, you can jailbreak, but that has it's own problems) is a bad idea.

An app which breaks no laws, gets shouted down by a rabble - what price free speech?

Re: 'Gay cure' Apple iPhone app: more than 80,000 complain
 

Matth, but people who are out to cause problems or belittle minorities always hide behind the free speech rubbish and its tiresome. Im not saying this is the case here but it a guarentee that if pulled up on it they will claim its free speech.

Re: 'Gay cure' Apple iPhone app: more than 80,000 complain
 

Nothing to do with free speech. A right to free speech, which we don't have by law by the way, doesn't entitle you to a platform.

Re: 'Gay cure' Apple iPhone app: more than 80,000 complain
 

"Free speech" doesn't give anyone the right to cry "fire" in a crowded cinema - with rights, come responsibilities.

Re: 'Gay cure' Apple iPhone app: more than 80,000 complain
 

We live with a Common Law system here in Blighty ... Generally that means everything is allowed except for those things that have been specifically forbidden. It is a red herring to say we don't have free speech by law, when we don't need a law in order to grant it. Common Law systems are far more robust in that way. Free speech is restricted in the UK in specific circumstances where it might result in a crime or in damage to personal reputation.

On the specific issue of platform, you are correct that you don't have the right to roll up on someone's private property and say what you want without being able to be moved on, and in that sense the App Store is Apple's private property. However, here in the UK you do have a right to a public platform. There is nothing to stop you standing on a soap box on the high street to share your views on any subject.

Edit

Naturally this issue is complicated by the fact that the app is made in, and distributed from, the USA, not the UK.