Google's Android app store has added another inflammatory program to its list of wares. "Is My Son Gay?" by French developers "Emmene Moi" is an app that aims to deduce your son's sexual orientation through a series of 20 questions. Does he like to dress up nicely? Was he shy as a child? Are you divorced? Does he like football? What about diva singers? At the end, if your son is determined to be gay, the app counsels: "ACCEPT IT!" Still, critics call it offensively stereotypical and tired.
Android's Developer Program Policies forbid content that promotes hatred toward groups of people, including hatred based on sexual orientation. Does this app fall into that category? This isn’t the first time a provocative smartphone app has hit the market. Most recently, a dog-fighting game app disturbed lawmakers and upset some consumers. Before that was iPhone's Baby Shaker app. The objective of the game was to kill the baby in the vein of "Shaken Baby Syndrome." That app was banned – just before it hit one billion downloads.
One category of apps prompted attention from the US Senate. Senators said DUI-checkpoint-locator apps are harmful to public safety and should be pulled from the market. So far, BlackBerry is the only company that has acquiesced.
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What content do you think should be banned? What's the best way of policing this content? Or should it be a free-for-all with the market deciding?