It flagged an ad for having "Overtly sexual or pornographic material" and "Realistic portrayals of people or animals being killed".
It flagged THIS ad for that.
I understand the desire to defend Tapas but come on... They need to take some heat on this too.
Does this look like the result of getting in the trenches and fighting for the creators? Either these flagged series are being notified by an automated process which Tapas isn't reviewing or they were unable to convince Apple that this ad wasn't porn/snuff images...neither is a good look for Tapas.
I know, I checked out the twitter thread. I still think it's some mistake by whatever image-mapping or tag-seeking algorithm Apple is using. Tapas gets stuck as the middle man, relaying what Apple caught to their users, automatically, and not being able to go through it as a case by case basis with less than 20 people on staff to sort through all these until the creator e-mails them back to ask for specifics.
EDIT: Could also be as this person suggested
I dunno, I just think it's a bad look publicly calling out a small company for what could very well be a legit mistake without trying to work the problem out first via e-mail, which Tapas welcomes.
Wow, I JUST saw this. Body hair? Are they for real?
I assumed it concerned overtly violent and/or sexual content, but with examples like these here, all of us could get randomly hit by an automated ban, what the hell.
Time to build our own websites again, it seems. If all these apps just (have to) censor us, what's even the point? Seriously. Build a following with what's available and then hope for the best when you send people the link to your own page, where you can actually post your uncensored content. Sounds like the most business-savvy way to me right now.
This is ridiculous.
To be fair, the character is naked in the episode... But his groin is already covered with a giant blue dot whenever it comes into view. X'D The scene is also not sexy/gratuitous, which the Tapas staff agreed.
I can understand how conservative viewers still might not want to see it. But 1) isn't that what the mature tag is for, and 2) shaving my character isn't going to magically make everything kindergarten-appropriate...
TBH I'm... not too upset by the block itself, for my own comic. I was just extremely confused and scared the past couple days. Now that I've reminded myself (with the help and support of other people) that this doesn't make me any less of a creator, I'm starting to feel better. I understand other creators are also affected, though, and they may feel differently.
As I said, I think it could potentially have been dealt with better. But practically? I don't know. What I know is that I don't have a solution to offer, thus I can't blame them.
True, I know nothing about comic hosting websites, so they sure should know better than me; I, however, have experience with times of crisis in small structures with only a few staff; with the mistakes, bad decisions and uncertainty brought by being understaffed and with too much uncertainly ahead to hire more. Sometimes even if you have a strong, serious plan, a good compromise, all ready, the beginnings are shaky and it may convey the wrong idea to the public.
I'm not part of Tapas; I can't entirely disregard the possibility that they decided they don't want to fight anymore for the creators; but at this point, I have no reason to think that, as the additional workload and confusion seem to be enough to explain what's going on right now.
Of course, and I don't think anyone wants to force content down anyone's throat. I mean, I'm not especially keen on reading BL just for the sake of BL (although that genre seems to gain in people who follow well thought-out storylines), so when people don't want to have sex or nudity in their content? Who am I to judge?
The problem is that Tapas is ALREADY 17+, so censoring people's content based on, uh, prudery? Instead of just directing people to the 17+ sign, for heaven's sake?! It actually seems as if something else is going on. The app is not for kids. There are barriers you can build in kids' phones so they can't download anything that doesn't fit their age.
It more and more feels like a war on sexuality, nudeness, and the queer community – since these are things that seem to get flagged the most.
I'm not surprised with a "president" like that turd they have in the US right now, not surprised in the slightest. But it makes you wonder where it's even still safe for content creators anymore, especially from marginalized groups.
Then keyword ban, that's why mature tags exist and, again, I stand by my "investigate the damned flag" statement. Nobody should be forced to put up with this big brother garbage. Especially if you're not doing anything wrong. There's no excuse to ban things like "body hair" or LGBTQ+ stuff just because some conservative nobody has a problem with it.
Tapas CAN help us with this. Tapas CAN defend and argue the case as to WHY censorship is not the answer to this non-existent problem. Does some bad content fall through the cracks? Of course, but don't PUNISH everyone. Have an ACTUAL HUMAN BEING review the content and make the determination if it's a problem. Create a chain of command. This is NOT hard.
Look, every time something shaky goes on Tapas... This reasoning is the default defense. Granted, it's a logical reason but when it's as frequently cited as this...it points to a flaw in corporate strategy that still remains on Tapas. It's not an individual indictment of any specific employee but it can't remain the go to excuse for when things go wrong.
Someone made a very good summary of the inherent problem on Twitter when patreon started to pick and choose what fantasy NSFW wasn't okay(hypno, transformation, etc, it's been a few weeks). I can't find the link unfortunately, but basically the site has to answer to who pays the site, who pays the site has to answer to the bank, the bank is people who like their ads immaculate and have no concept of mature ratings. Apple has its own system, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's no different than how trigger happy Paypal is to remove any evidence that they've ever had a plataform for Things Unsuitable for Children/Ads.