Both Apple and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney have provided responses below…
Apple has been legally required to approve a pornography app for iPhone users in EU markets due to regulatory actions put in place by Europe’s Digital Markets Act. Since launching the App Store in 2008, Apple’s policy has been to prevent apps explicitly for distributing pornography from being listed in the App Store.
As of today, however, EU iPhone users can access Hot Tub, an app for browsing pornography, as easily as downloading Epic’s Fortnite or Delta, the popular Nintendo game emulator.
That’s because Hot Tub is distributed through AltStore PAL.
Prior to today, AltStore PAL has largely been viewed as a generally harmless avenue for developers to distribute software for the iPhone without being required to agree to Apple’s revenue split policies.
However, the arrival of Hot Tub, which lacks age verification for access, shows that at least one of Apple’s concerns over a less moderated app marketplace has become reality.
In a Fast Company piece published on this date a year ago, Apple’s Phil Schiller warned of the possibility of porn apps being distributed alongside game apps that are popular with kids
Schiller is quick to point out that despite these new security measures, there are limits to the protections that Apple can provide to users who allow alternative app marketplaces to operate on their iPhones. The company has virtually no control over the content of apps from those marketplaces—even if that content is objectionable or harmful.
“Ultimately, there are things that we have not allowed on our App Store—things that we didn’t think would be safe or appropriate,” Schiller says. “It will not be our decision whether those other marketplaces have the same terms and limitations.”
So yes, for the first time, apps dedicated to pornography can be run on the iPhone. This should be something parents are aware of, because the DMA does not give Apple the legal right to forbid certain types of app stores from operating on its platform, nor does Apple have the ability to prevent a child from downloading such an app store onto their iPhone.
One year to the day of that story being published, a porn app is being distributed in the same channel as Nintendo emulators and Fortnite. While the app doesn’t appear in the AltStore by default, it is listed like other apps when adding its distributor as a source.
AltStore PAL required an annual subscription for access until last August, when Fortnite maker Epic Games provided AltStore PAL with a grant to offset the costs associated with providing the alternative app marketplace.
The bottom line for parents, though, is that the “Apple-approved” messaging around the porn app on iPhone omits the fact that Apple is legally required to approve the app due to the DMA policy, which the company has campaigned against. Suggesting the app is endorsed by Apple also violates the company’s notarization policy.
There is a nuanced argument that could be made where Apple’s business practices created the conditions that allowed the company to have to legally approve a porn app on iPhone for EU customers without strict parental controls. But describing the porn app as simply Apple-approved is intentionally clever and misleading.
And what about porn access through Safari? Apple’s Screen Time protections and third-party content blockers allow parents to restrict access to explicit content on the web.
Apple has provided a statement, specifically regarding the dishonest endorsement.
“We are deeply concerned about the safety risks that hardcore porn apps of this type create for EU users, especially kids,” Apple says. “This app and others like it will undermine consumer trust and confidence in our ecosystem that we have worked for more than a decade to make the best in the world. Contrary to the false statements made by the marketplace developer, we certainly do not approve of this app and would never offer it in our App Store. The truth is that we are required by the European Commission to allow it to be distributed by marketplace operators like AltStore and Epic who may not share our concerns for user safety.”
Meanwhile, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney provided his take on the situation when we asked:
“This isn’t how platforms should work: on Windows, Mac, and Linux, developers can make and release apps without the platform maker adding junk fees and rendering moral judgments on their decisions,” Sweeney tells us. “On iOS, Apple forces its processes on developers against their wishes. We’ve argued to the European Union that Apple should be forced out of developers’ way, because when Apple are allowed to be the gatekeeper of competing apps and stores, they grossly misuse that power to disadvantage competition.”
Additionally, Sweeney took issue with Apple’s statement in two ways:
“Contrary to Apple’s false statement, the Epic Games Store doesn’t carry this app, doesn’t carry any porn apps, and has never carried porn apps,” Sweeney writes. “Apple’s App Store does carry porn apps. For example, they host the Reddit app, and Reddit is full of porn.”
In 2016, Apple briefly removed several Reddit clients from the App Store for NSFW content and a toggle to show/hide it. Apple later restored these apps after they removed the NSFW toggle.
Another technical pressure point that could affect Hot Tub is the top-level domain that the service uses, .io, explicitly bans use for serving pornographic content:
No .IO domain may be used, directly or indirectly, for any purpose that is sexual or pornographic or that is against the statutory laws of any Nation. In the event of the Registry being advised by any party that a specific site breaches this condition then the Registry reserves the right to immediately deactivate the offending registration.
As @mysk_co points out on X, this could be an issue for family-safe DNS services that trust .io domains not to serve sexual content.
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