The Giddy Social Whirl - The Importance of Being - You Know, Not Dumb

Kate Williams ponders the world of social media, and today takes another bite at the Apple.

Poor Apple - it struck another sour note this week, after backtracking on a questionable decision to ban an adaptation of a literary masterpiece from their App Store.

It is now Some Considerable Time since a US court, in a case widely acknowledged to mark a turning-point in Western literary culture, ruled that James Joyce's Ulysses was not, in fact, obscene. But never mind all that - Apple had decided that Ulysses Seen would only be considered if a frame, depicting what I'll describe as “the decorous nudity of a Graeco-Roman goddess” were redrawn. With her kecks on. Another, similarly innocuous, drawing was also rejected.

You know, chaps, I’m not wildly keen on porn, and I don’t buy into many of the civil liberties arguments touted in its defence. Truth is, I reckon we are sleep-walking towards a piercing wake-up call when it comes to how easily young kids can access mobile porn, and what that might be doing to their developing psyches and sexualities.

But Steve. Steve. If you want this ‘no-porn’ thing to pan out for you, you really need to pay a bit more attention to the game. Nixing Meisterwerks of Modernism®, alongside similarly literary depictions of gay canoodling in an Oscar Wilde adaptation, while allowing graphic heterosexual coupling in other graphic novels? It’s somewhat injurious to your argument.


Granted, two cheers are due, now that you’ve changed your mind. But you might want to beef up the integrity of that whole decision-making process - because it also recently concluded that The Sun’s bare breasts, wrapped, as they are, in ‘respectable’ (and profitable) newsprint, were perfectly okay for family viewing.

That's All Folks!

For more social media snippets, follow @emodkate - or for general twittery, @KateVWilliams.