Apple Inc. this week pulled the iOS image-sharing app of a startup after receiving complaints it featured pornographic images, a tech site reported Wednesday.
Reviewers had flagged the "500px" app for objectionable content, according to a report posted on tech site The Next Web.
"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," it quoted an Apple spokesperson as saying.
"Note that the Apple statement only says that it received customer complaints about possible child pornography. That doesn’t mean that the service hosts such imagery intentionally or condones it, but there was apparently enough information for Apple to take action," it added.
But 500px issued its own statement in response to Apple’s reasoning, saying it takes such complaints very seriously.
"We take the issue of child pornography incredibly seriously. There has never been an issue or one complaint to us about child pornography. Although it has never happened, a complaint of this nature would be taken very seriously and would immediately be escalated to appropriate law enforcement agency. In all our conversations with Apple a concern about child exploitation was never mentioned," it said.
A separate article on TechCrunch quoted Tchebotarev as saying the nudes found via the app are artistic, as 500px' community tends to include professional photographers and photo enthusiasts.
"We don’t allow pornographic images. If something is purely pornographic, it’s against our terms and it’s deleted," he said.
Apple notice
The report said Apple sent a notice to 500px, notifying it that it was too easy to find "objectionable nude content" using the app's search function.
It added the 500px team learned it could prevent such content from appearing through searches by tweaking its backend databases.
The Next Web quoted 500px COO Evgeny Tchebotarev as saying the fix is being put into place now.
It added 500px plans to implement a "more elegant" filtering solution that would prevent the content from being displayed.
Also, Tchebotarev said 500px is continuously working on the filtration processes that it uses to make sure that people do not see nudity unless they wish so. — TJD, GMA News
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