Important Announcement Regarding Mature Content for iOS

[hushicho]

Thank you, sincerely.

I have always supported mature content and the ability of adults to express themselves, and to enjoy expression of other adults. Ever since I made the decision to come to Tapas to post some of my work, I operated in faith that the email correspondence I had was trustworthy. I had mailed Tapas in the early stages of the site, to make sure that at least nudity and non-explicit sex was okay; I was assured it was fine in the context of a story, and I have maintained it accordingly and marked any mature content myself.

I hope I won't regret saying this, but I have been treated shockingly poorly in past, by hosts who were all too happy to host my work and build their platform, then some time later decided to treat the creators who built them up like a barge of medical waste. I am glad if Tapas is not going in that direction. It's easy to do that, but it's also very, very stupid and also horribly unprofessional.

I could not care less about Apple's store or their attempts to dumb down everything and make it "family friendly" or sufficiently mainstream. What I do care about is the reliability and trustworthiness of a platform, and trusting them enough not to backstab me and throw me under a bus in desperation for acceptance by Apple, or any other company for that matter.

Thank you, tentatively, for not doing that. I hope you will not be tempted in future to change policy. Mature creators are an important and sizable part of the sequential art community, and I resent every single instance of bad treatment. I'm very glad if Tapas respect their userbase and readers more than that.

[Rodimus13]

Ok so as an example, we sometimes at the end of our comics do a lil picture or link saying "Hey this comic is neat check it out" as a way of helping each other out.

Like what we did here. The one I circled we did warn had mature themes. It doesn't come up often in our case.

No images from the comic other than the icon. Most folks don't do a review.

[Maps]

Thanks to the Tapas staff for the time they spent on this and for informing us about the new policies. I’ve been through audits at work and they are daaamn stressful!
I’m incredibly bummed that Apple feels a need to censor its (dare I say... “paying”) consumers. I think censorship can be a dangerous thing and it puts a dent in freedom of expression. Like it was mentioned above, it blocks adults enjoying mature work by other adults.
That said, I’m not sure I’ll be editing my flagged works to fit the policies to make them viewable because that would take away from me telling my story as I wished to tell it. But I will keep these policies in mind for future reference if I want to create a series that can be viewable when searched.
Again, thanks for the info.

[michaelson]

Thank you, tentatively, for not doing that. I hope you will not be tempted in future to change policy. Mature creators are an important and sizable part of the sequential art community, and I resent every single instance of bad treatment. I'm very glad if Tapas respect their userbase and readers more than that.

Changing our Content Policy Guidelines to adhere more to Apple wasn't really a viable long term option for us. There's no way to tell if they'll update their safety guidelines to be even more strict than it is now which makes always abiding to their terms risky.

However, having our iOS App adhere to their rules made sense as they are our host.

I think it's really important to establish rules and policies for the Tapas home (web and mobile web) that operate with some autonomy from the app stores due to these reasons. Hope that makes sense!

Ok so as an example, we sometimes at the end of our comics do a lil picture or link saying "Hey this comic is neat check it out" as a way of helping each other out.

I think that's fine. Again, this is a case by case basis, if the previous image had any type of mature content within it, then it wouldn't really be suitable, but the example you showed is fine.

[Rodimus13]

Thanks for clarifying! It's appreciated.

[baasinsimple]

You guys are doing a lot for us in this situation where there isn't a lot of flexibility on your end, so I can only thank you for your work. Even if I'm not particularly floored by these results. I certainly hope I'm not notified in the near future.

[Pan]

Wondering if a list of flagged tags will ever be made available? For future projects I'd want to make sure I can have my work be accessible on both platforms, and it'd be nice to know what themes to avoid! Also thanks for everything you do for the community, Michael, we really appreciate it.

[Rodimus13]

Wondering if a list of flagged tags will ever be made available

Oh yes, this would be very helpful.

[Coati]

That's sad, but I'm really happy with the way Tapas is handling this

[skicoak]

Yes, we're still compiling the list of series that have been flagged.

Does this mean that being currently searchable isn't a sign that we've passed?

[silverraven0]

That's very unfortunate, but I believe that everyone have been doing their best for tapas.

I appreciate all of the staffs hard work. Thank you for everything.

[UrMom]

Eh, I'm not a fan of Apple anyway. No skin off my teeth as long as you guys don't outright get rid of mature content eventually.

[borzoiteeth]

Out of so many other sites I considered Tapas' way of tagging mature works from general overall to just specific pages to be fantastic. So disappointing, crushing that Apple refuses to co-operate with you.

Thank you so much for your hard work.

[marygold]

Thank you so much for your hard work! We really appreciate all your time and effort to create this free space for us to share ideas and stories

[Zyephen]

Good job to Tapas for standing up for their creators, but shame on apple for trying to stifle people's creativity. Down with the ridiculous censorship set by these stupid rich companies who think they own the damn world.

[michaelson]

You guys are doing a lot for us in this situation where there isn't a lot of flexibility on your end, so I can only thank you for your work. Even if I'm not particularly floored by these results. I certainly hope I'm not notified in the near future.

Appreciate it!

Wondering if a list of flagged tags will ever be made available?

Unfortunately, we won't be releasing a publicly available list. Not saying that this will happen, but it might encourage creators to avoid tagging their series and getting past this filtering process. We would much rather have these filters in place to help our editors talk with the creators on what best next steps are.

Does this mean that being currently searchable isn't a sign that we've passed?

No, the current version of the iOS app has not been updated with the audited list. The audited list will take effect if and when the newest version of the app is approved.

That's very unfortunate, but I believe that everyone have been doing their best for tapas.

100% agree and which is why this process has been so frustrating to deal with.

Thank you so much for your hard work.

Appreciate it!!

Thank you so much for your hard work! We really appreciate all your time and effort to create this free space for us to share ideas and stories

Thanks!!

[Pan]

That's fair, thanks for answering all our questions!

[Cavechan]

Just reiterating what others have said... Thank you to Tapas for standing up for creators and Apple can go die in a cesspool for all I care. I hate that company and will never support them in any way. They have truly proven themselves to be absolute scum.

Also, does anyone know if there's a way to complain to Apple about this? I know it won't do anything, but even having our voice and dissatisfaction known a bit more and maybe one day, when people stop being ridiculous prudes, maybe they will care and fix this nonsense.

[jamesschleisman]

So part of the reason I started posting on Tapas is due to the fallout of Tumblr at the hands of Apple. I write about gay romance and magic (dipping into occult and demonology). Tumblr's algorithm for flagging content as "mature" often picked up my content even though violence, hate speech, and sex/overly sexual themes were absent from what I posted. Will this change affect LGBTQ+ creators and stories in a similar way? I still plan to create and post on here because I love your platform, it just sucks that Apple gets to determine what's "family friendly" especially when the burden of that censorship often falls on the LGBTQ+ art community.

[krisadafantasy]

It's had bee hard on you and I appreciate your effort and hard work!

This is the same as what happened to ArtStation app recently. What happen on iPhone must be approved by iPhone.