# Apple’s Deleting selected iCloud Emails



## Kid_Eternity (Feb 26, 2013)

Yet more Apple control freakery as they go after porn lovers everywhere:




> In its latest push to get porn off your computer, Apple now deletes all iCloud emails that contain the phrase ‘barely legal teens.’ It doesn’t send the messages to spam, or flag them, it just straight up deletes them, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
> 
> 
> It sounds like Apple’s just trying to help you avoid child pornography, but the iCloud censorship was actually discovered by an Academy Award -winning screenwriter named Steven G., who has nothing to do with child porn.
> ...


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## el-ahrairah (Feb 26, 2013)

is this causing you problems?  *name goes on list*


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## elbows (Feb 27, 2013)

Read more at www.ICopyAndPasteMyThreadTitles.co.ck


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## Mrs Magpie (Feb 27, 2013)

elbows said:


> Read more at www.ICopyAndPasteMyThreadTitles.co.ck


I've drastically cut it.


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## editor (Feb 27, 2013)

So Apple has started secretly censoring private - and entirely legal -  emails based on their own moral code?

Great company to do with business with, guys.


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## joustmaster (Feb 27, 2013)

Can some one who uses icloud recreate this?
I am not convinced either of the users didn't have other software that filters mail.


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## mrs quoad (Feb 27, 2013)

joustmaster said:


> Can some one who uses icloud recreate this?
> I am not convinced either of the users didn't have other software that filters mail.


I've got a me.com account... I'll see if I can send something to it and access it.


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## Pickman's model (Feb 27, 2013)

Kid_Eternity said:


> Yet more Apple control freakery as they go after porn lovers everywhere:


at least wayne rooney would be ok, unless they go after granny porn too.


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## Pickman's model (Feb 27, 2013)

joustmaster said:


> Can some one who uses icloud recreate this?
> I am not convinced either of the users didn't have other software that filters mail.


read the op.

this is NOT a filter, sending something to spam or whatnot.

this apparently DELETES the email.

there is a difference.


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## editor (Feb 27, 2013)

joustmaster said:


> Can some one who uses icloud recreate this?
> I am not convinced either of the users didn't have other software that filters mail.


Even if this turns out not to be true, the fact that it's seen as being entirely _possible_ because of the company's well documented prudish censorship policies remains depressing.


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## mrs quoad (Feb 27, 2013)

Tried sending an email through hotmail with the header 'barely legal teens,' and the content 'barely legal teens, barely legal teens, nothing in this email but barely legal teens.'

Sent about 5 mins ago, certainly hasn't arrived in my me.com account yet


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## Crispy (Feb 27, 2013)

Try something like:

"Despite being barely legal, teens have taken to driving high-performance sportscars."


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## joustmaster (Feb 27, 2013)

mrs quoad said:


> Tried sending an email through hotmail with the header 'barely legal teens,' and the content 'barely legal teens, barely legal teens, nothing in this email but barely legal teens.'
> 
> Sent about 5 mins ago, certainly hasn't arrived in my me.com account yet


Any sign of it? Is it in the junk folder?


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## abe11825 (Feb 27, 2013)

Another ruling out of Big Brother's playbook, and next week, we won't be typing in other email services. Too many ways to track you down and kick you on the floor now. I saw on the news last night, that people are being sued by their ISPs for downloading porn, when they're not even downloading, full stop. People with unsecured wireless routers are being hit by neighbours, ecc, and those downloading are making the owner pay. The girl interviewed, said she is in a high profile job, and if she even thought about downloading, especially porn, she'd be terminated (the news cast shadowed her face). But what was the context of the porn? "Barely Legal" (with other words).


Apple has always had its nose in the prude business from day one. This honestly isn't real surprising. Alot of email services censor or block emails. This isn't new. It'll go on until we / someone stops it.



e2a: and anyone know the name of the software they use? What is it, iSelectNoPorn?


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## mrs quoad (Feb 27, 2013)

Crispy said:


> Try something like:
> 
> "Despite being barely legal, teens have taken to driving high-performance sportscars."


Send it to me yourself, man 

quoad at me.com

e2a: I'll see what's come through next time I'm downstairs.


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## Crispy (Feb 27, 2013)

done


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## Firky (Feb 27, 2013)

I don't use iCloud or anything Apply if I can help it. I use a junk email for my Apple ID when I need to download apps and things. 

Which is a bit daft really as I hand over everything to the omnipotent Google instead  @ self.


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## mrs quoad (Feb 27, 2013)

Crispy said:


> done


Sports cars? That got through 

e2a: something about 'despite being barely legal, teens something something sports cars.'


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## salem (Feb 27, 2013)

I'd be interested to know if the script was attached and if so what format it was in. For them to open up and scant he contents of a word document for example would be more work then to just scan the email itself (which would probably be done as part of anti-spam)

However it's not uncommon for there to be emails that skip the spam filter and go straight to bin. Certainly hotmail are quite big on this especially if you're IP or mail server IP has been used for spamming in the past. What *may* have happened here is that they have two levels of spam one that gets into the spam folder and one that just gets binned and that the mentioned term simply pushed the spam filters score over the threshold into the delete straight out spam folder.

I'd like to think it's just automated overzealous filtering of spam rather than morals.


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## editor (Feb 27, 2013)

mrs quoad said:


> Sports cars? That got through
> 
> e2a: something about 'despite being barely legal, teens something something sports cars.'


Well, that phrase has an entirely different meaning so I'm not surprised it got through. How about your emails that contained the actual disputed phrase?


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## Crispy (Feb 27, 2013)

maybe it was just the comma that threw it off
trying again with

Despite being barely legal teens have taken to driving high-performance sportscars


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## editor (Feb 27, 2013)

Interesting piece about Apples continuing moral censorship:


> Nudity, e-books and censorship: How Apple became Big Brother
> *The burgeoning trend of censorship in the cyber sphere has claimed another victim.*
> 
> Apple Inc., the digital-retailing leviathan, is refusing to market the Hippie 1 and 2 e-books and iPad apps by bestselling Danish author Peter Ovig Knudsen.
> ...


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## mrs quoad (Feb 27, 2013)

Crispy said:


> Despite being barely legal teens have taken to driving high-performance sportscars


^^^ got through.


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## Crispy (Feb 27, 2013)

mrs quoad said:


> ^^^ got through.


So the filter itself doesn't appear to be *that* broken. It's not trying to prevent anyone saying Barely Legal Teens, it's just trying to block porn spam, which is a good thing. They should just use a Spam folder like other email providers, instead of instant deletion.


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## editor (Feb 27, 2013)

Crispy said:


> So the filter itself doesn't appear to be *that* broken. It's not trying to prevent anyone saying Barely Legal Teens, it's just trying to block porn spam, which is a good thing.


But not a good thing if it's implemented so badly that legitimate emails are being deleted without notice.


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## Crispy (Feb 27, 2013)

editor said:


> But not a good thing if it's implemented so badly that legitimate emails are being deleted without notice.


That's right. It's a broken filter, but it's not completely broken.


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## editor (Feb 27, 2013)

Crispy said:


> That's right. It's a broken filter, but it's not completely croken.


Makes you wonder what else might be getting deleted, without notice.


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## peterkro (Feb 27, 2013)

Sent email from me.com with Barely Legal Teens in subject line,didn't arrive,WTF???, a few minutes later it did arrive now I don't know was it floating around the ether or was Apple unsure about posting it?


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## editor (Feb 27, 2013)

peterkro said:


> Sent email from me.com with Barely Legal Teens in subject line,didn't arrive,WTF???, a few minutes later it did arrive now I don't know was it floating around the ether or was Apple unsure about posting it?


They were probably having a little look.


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## elbows (Feb 27, 2013)

A sensible attempt at investigating the issue here:

http://www.sparsebundle.net/posts/apples-filtering-icloud-emails-probably-not/


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## editor (Feb 27, 2013)

elbows said:


> A sensible attempt at investigating the issue here:
> 
> http://www.sparsebundle.net/posts/apples-filtering-icloud-emails-probably-not/


It's all over the place:


> Some commenters are reporting being able to replicate the issue, some aren’t. It seems extremely hit and miss to be a blanket policy. Perhaps this is actually a glitch that affects some users, either at random or it could be by region.


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## elbows (Feb 27, 2013)

Thats a sensible point given that users own tests do not seem very consistent. This stuff should be very repeatable, if it isnt then other factors should be considered, some of which that articles goes into in detail. I doubt its perfect, but the original story leaps to conclusions far too soon.


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## elbows (Feb 27, 2013)

I mean call me mad, but it is kind of sensible not to assume that apple are indulging in a form of censorship without proper evidence. The idea that its poorly configured anti-spam of some kind is so much more likely than anything else.

Yes they are moralising control freaks when it comes to things like the app store, but thats all the more reason not to just assume that everything else along these lines must be true just because its Apple. Censoring sexually explicit emails goes well beyond anything they've done previously, is not comparable to their app store policies, and if true would represent a serious escalation of something in a manner that it seems quite unlikely they would indulge in for a variety of business reasons.

There is plenty of real, deliberate stuff to bash them for, no need to spoil it with shit stories that lack proper research & analysis and go leaping to premature conclusions.


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## mrs quoad (Feb 27, 2013)

Of the top 12 iTunes songs that're returned when you search for 'vagina,' 7 are called 'Vagina.'

One is 'the vagina song.'

Then there's 'V for Vagina,' 'momma said [by Puscifer - V is for Vagina]', 'mon triangle d'or [by Vagina - pop 1,000],' and 'show me your genitals.'

Def. looks like they've got past that whole thang.


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## editor (Feb 28, 2013)

mrs quoad said:


> Def. looks like they've got past that whole thang.


They should never have got their uptight, moralising, censorial paws on that 'thang' in the first place.


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## Firky (Feb 28, 2013)

editor said:


> They were probably having a little look.


 
I'd say so.

Doesn't Facebook employ people in their thousands in the developing world to manually check photos? Oddly you can show a woman being flogged or stoned to death but a photo of a woman showing her breasts is a no no.

Think it has changed since then - after they got stick for deleting photos of men kissing.


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## Firky (Feb 28, 2013)

*Inside Facebook’s Outsourced Anti-Porn and Gore Brigade, Where ‘Camel Toes’ are More Offensive Than ‘Crushed Heads’*

Amine Derkaoui, a 21-year-old Moroccan man, is pissed at Facebook. Last year he spent a few weeks training to screen illicit Facebook content through an outsourcing firm, for which he was paid a measly $1 an hour. He's still fuming over it.

Facebook, it appears, will delete pretty tame stuff. For example, any of the following content will be deleted, according to the guidelines:

Blatant (obvious) depiction of camel toes and moose knuckles.
Mothers breastfeeding without clothes on.
Sex toys or other objects, but only in the context of sexual activity.
Depicting sexual fetishes in any form.
ANY photoshopped images of people, whether negative, positive or neutral.
Images of drunk and unconscious people , or sleeping people with things drawn on their 
face.
Violent speech (Example: "I love hearing skulls crack.").
http://gawker.com/5885714/


Dated 2012: things have changed since then but it's still not much better. My friend had her photos deleted because she was naked in the shower with her new born. The photos were really quite good and just because she was naked they were deleted. To see sexualness in them you'd have to be pretty odd.


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## elbows (Feb 28, 2013)

Although providers that allow user-generated content to be seen by others usually go out of their way to avoid having to police it to pro-actively due to the costs involved, its not hard to see why Facebook do that stuff. I am no fan of the whole way the world has evolved with corporations playing such a role in our personal lives online, and I dislike Facebook so I'm not defending their policies, but its not too surprising that they do that.

Actually having humans read private emails is another matter though - the sheer scale of it = the cost of doing it, and the fact that they have so little to gain from it since any 'objectionable' material is not published to the internet public. So I would be amazed if Apple did that, the only people I expect would routinely do it are spooks via a combination of automated and manual systems.


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## Kid_Eternity (Feb 28, 2013)

Crispy said:


> So the filter itself doesn't appear to be *that* broken. It's not trying to prevent anyone saying Barely Legal Teens, it's just trying to block porn spam, which is a good thing. They should just use a Spam folder like other email providers, instead of instant deletion.


 
C'mon they have no right to delete emails without your knowledge, set up high octane spam filters sure but they should show up in the junk folder. This is wrong. But thankfully not an issue for me as I don't use iCloud mail as it's shit, Gmail pisses all over basically all webmail these days.


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## FridgeMagnet (Feb 28, 2013)

Lots of anti spam systems delete sufficiently spammy spam. My server side one does, which uses spamassassin - only things with a score between X and Y get spam foldered, everything over Y is deleted. This is of course configurable by me though.


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## Crispy (Feb 28, 2013)

Kid_Eternity said:


> C'mon they have no right to delete emails without your knowledge, set up high octane spam filters sure but they should show up in the junk folder.


Like I said



			
				Crispy said:
			
		

> _They should just use a Spam folder like other email providers, instead of instant deletion._


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## Kid_Eternity (Feb 28, 2013)

Fairy nuff, didn't spot that in the scan read of the thread.


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## editor (Feb 28, 2013)

The Verge has covered the story too.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/28/4032718/apple-deleting-icloud-emails-containing-barely-legal-teen


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## elbows (Feb 28, 2013)

There is something wacky going on from a tech & intention point of view given that article says teen gets blocked but teens does not.


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