Apple’s App Store has seen numerous instances of censorship over the years. From its temporary removal of Ultimate General: Gettysburg because it featured the Confederate flag, to its permanent ban of Binding of Isaac for “cartoon depictions of violence towards children,” the digital retail platform has become something of a safe space for the readily offended.
Recently, two indie game developers who together form Ansem Omega Solutions submitted their political satire game, Hide it Hillary, to the App Store. It was rejected on the grounds that the game “includes content that could be considered defamatory or mean-spirited.” According to the notice they received, their game refers to a “controversial current event” and was thus not approved.
This betrays a double standard by Apple, which had no problem approving satirical games that bash or promote physical violence towards Donald Trump. Titles currently available on the App Store include Trump Toss, Punch Trump, Trump Slap, Slap Donald Trump and Smack a Trump. There’s also Trump Dump, which depicts the presidential candidate as a literal pile of shit.
Hide it Hillary is played from a first-person perspective and invites you to “sort” documents that land on your desk into a laptop, server, shredder, or closet. Interestingly, Hillary Clinton’s likeness is never used in the game or even its promotional material. In contrast, games that make fun of Donald Trump use caricatures of the Republican Presidential candidate.
According to its developers, the game was successfully launched on Google Play for Android devices without a hitch, but faced issues when they submitted the game for review on Apple. Posting on Reddit, the game’s developers stated that the review process took a total of 8 hours. It usually only takes up to an hour.
Heat Street reached out to Ansem Omega Solutions with inquiries about their company and what their views are on the situation. They told us that as individuals, they have over a decade of experience in game development, but this was their first foray into a mobile release.
“As far as mobile apps go, this is our first one,” they said. “It was extremely easy to get published in the Google Play store, we simply submitted it and it was approved in under an hour and people started buying it immediately.”
“I absolutely believe there’s a double standard with Apple in the sense that they have defamatory and mean-spirited Trump games available for download but none for Hillary. I cited specific examples in my Reddit post.”
The Hide it Hillary developers raised the possibility that the company CEO’s support for Hillary Clinton may have had something to do with the rejection they received. This past month, Apple CEO Tim Cook hosted a fundraiser for Clinton at up to $50k a ticket. Cook also held a fundraiser for Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan in June.
“I can’t imagine we are the first developers to experience this type of bias. In fact, one of the main reasons we chose to develop a Hillary app is because there were no Hillary apps whatsoever in the store 6 months ago when we began developing,” they said. “Coupled with the constant Hillary antics, from Benghazi to the emails, we thought we had a strong concept for a game due to the extraordinary amount of people outraged by the many, many Clinton scandals.”
Whatever the reason for Apple’s censorship, the case is clear: Apple think it’s okay to make fun of Donald Trump, but it’s not okay to make fun of Hillary Clinton.
