It looks like Apple hasn’t learned their lesson from its last go around with political satire games. Last month, I wrote about an app called “Capitol HillAwry” in which the objective is to collect as much money through e-mail donations as possible while fetching a respectable approval rating in the polls. The game wasn’t approved because Apple thought it was too “offensive” and “objectionable” because it made fun of Hillary Clinton’s e-mail.
Now, Apple finds itself in another political game controversy. A new game called “Hide it Hillary” was first denied on Apple’s App Store because it “include[d] content that could be considered defamatory or mean-spirited.”
Ironically, this is the same exact vetting process allowed disparaging games at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s expense. Apple has allowed games with names such as “Punch Trump,” “Slap Donald Trump,” and “Smack a Trump.” That list doesn’t even include all the other “Trump Dump” games that allow a player to hit Trump with excrement.
Heat Street reported Friday that “Hide It Hillary,” is available on Google Play for Android devices and “does not condone violence or even feature the former secretary of state’s image. Instead, users are tasked with putting documents into a “laptop, server, shredder, or closet.”
Incidentally, the day after Heat Street’s story, the app was available for 99 cents at iTunes and had great reviews – numerous 5 star reviews by the time the weekend was over.
Ansem Omega Solutions, the developers of the “Hide It Hillary” app, believe there’s a double standard between the Trump games allowed versus the few Clinton games allowed:
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 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.
Ansem Omega Solutions also said their game was approved by Google in less than an hour, versus the eight hours it took to get approval from Apple.
