Add Apple to the list of retailers who have purged their inventory of products that include the image of the Confederate flag, reports TouchArcade.
Apple pulled “Ultimate General: Gettysburg” and “Hunted Cow, Civil War,” according to the site, which then noted later that everything related to the Confederate flag had been removed from the App Store.
According to MacRumors, the list includes nine Civil War-related games, including “1861 A Civil War Rebellion” and “Civil War: Hidden Mysteries.” Earlier this week, MacRumor had spotted a range of products that used the flag. One named “Southern Pride Themes” offers the Confederate flag as wallpaper.
Apple still sells educational and generic Civil War apps, MacRumors noted.
As Heather Somerville wrote earlier this week, Amazon and eBay joined Walmart and other retailers to rid their inventory of Confederate flags and paraphernalia in the wake of the Charleston, South Carolina church shooting that resulted in the death of nine African-Americans.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, has spoken out about the Confederate flag imagery:
My thoughts are with the victim’s families in SC.Let us honor their lives by eradicating racism & removing the symbols & words that feed it.
But is Apple’s decision a step too far by rejecting the image even as a historical reference in some games?
That’s what TouchArcade’s Tasos Lazarides wondered as well:
Censoring historical games (if that is indeed the reason why the game’s have been pulled) is always very tricky because those games don’t glorify or promote a cause but, rather, represent historical events using the symbols and insignia of the period.
Apple told a game maker that his Civil War-themed titles were removed because they include “images of the Confederate flag used in offensive and mean-spirited ways,” according to the Huffington Post.
Above: One of the games removed from Apple’s App Store. (AppShopper)
