Popular photo sharing startup 500px has had a rough day at the office. Both its 500px iOS app and its ISO500 app have been pulled from the App Store over nude images, which to many seems harsh as users had to explicitly change the settings and then search for the pictures, TechCrunch reports.
The issue emerged over an update of the 500px app which was being processed by an App Store reviewer, with 500px being told it couldn’t be approved due to the nude content.
While the COO of 500px Evgeny Tcheboratev admits that was correct, he claims that users couldn’t simply find nude pictures with a quick search. First, one would have to visit the desktop website to turn off the default safe mode before being able to see anything potentially inappropriate.
Tcheboratev:
Some people are mature enough to see these photos, but by default it’s safe. We don’t allow pornographic images. If something is purely pornographic, it’s against our terms and it’s deleted. The app was in the App Store for 16 months – since October 2011. Can you imagine that?
He went on to say that most of the nude photos that are on 500px are of an ‘artistic’ nature, and that they were all about ‘fine art’. At the moment, 500px relies a lot on the community to point out inappropriate images, however it is developing software that could potentially recognize nudity in photos.
Apple later released a statement explaining its decision, but it is unlikely to stop many viewing it harshly, especially when you could argue that all browsers potentially contain such images if you look for them.
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.
