Apple Stops Censoring “Jailbreak” From iTunes And The App Store

Yesterday we brought you news that Apple had suddenly begun censoring the word “jailbreak” in its various stores. Visitors to the App Store or the iTunes Store who searched for “jail...
Apple Stops Censoring “Jailbreak” From iTunes And The App Store
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Yesterday we brought you news that Apple had suddenly begun censoring the word “jailbreak” in its various stores. Visitors to the App Store or the iTunes Store who searched for “jailbreak” saw it replaced with “j*******k.” That, as you may know, is the kind of treatment Apple usually reserves for the kinds of words you don’t want your kids saying (one of my favorite examples is the song “Kiss Me, I’m Sh*tfaced,” by Dropkick Murphys).

Thanks to a 2010 ruling by the U.S. Copyright Office that jailbreaking doesn’t violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Apple is legally required to tolerate the practice. That does not, of course, mean that they have to like it. In fact, most major updates to the iOS platform close the weaknesses used to create a new jailbreak. This, however, marks the first time that Apple has ever actually taken any sort of action against the word “jailbreak,” and most agreed that it was a pretty silly move.

Apparently somebody at Apple agreed, because “jailbreak” is once again off the naughty words list, because it’s no longer getting the asterisk treatment. Fans of Thin Lizzy will, I’m sure, be glad to know that their band’s album title is once again intact:

Jailbreak Censorship

Apple has kept quiet on why, exactly, the word was censored in the first place. Given the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing, my money is on it being some sort of mistake, or a gag by somebody at Apple that accidentally made it out into the wild.

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