Some people just won’t let go, will they?
Still upset about Apple’s much-maligned U2 album giveaway last year, Russian politician Alexander Starovoitov has come up with a new complaint we’ve not heard before: That by gifting Songs of Innocence to millions of iTunes customers around the world, Apple was knowingly distributing gay pornography.
If found guilty, Apple could be forced to cease operations in Russia for 90 days, or pay 1 million roubles in fines.
The gay pornography charge doesn’t come from any musical elements of the U2 album, but rather from its cover, which shows band member Larry Mullen Jr. hugging his shirtless 18-year-old son around the waist.
According to U2, it’s a metaphor about “how holding on to your own innocence is a lot harder than holding on to someone else’s”. According to rightwing LDPR party member Starovoitov, the photo is all that would be needed to turn his own strapping red-blooded heterosexual son (named in the complaint as a victim of moral damages) into *gasp* a homosexual.
The complaint is pretty ridiculous on every level, although it’s not the first time Apple has butted heads with the more progressively-backward elements of Russian politics.
After Tim Cook came out as gay, the Russian politician behind the country’s retrograde anti-gay laws claimed Apple’s CEO should be banned from the country, while a statue erected in honor of Steve Jobs was taken down and sold off.
Recently a bug in the Russian version of Siri (possibly the result of handing over the work to a third-party Russian programmer) resulted in Apple’s personal assistant providing homophobic responses to questions about LGBT issues — although it has now been fixed.
Who knows, maybe Alexander Starovoitov is just bitter about the fact that Apple is worth more than the entire Russian stock market?
Source: The Guardian
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
8 responses to “Russian minister accuses Apple of distributing gay porn to minors”
This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.
+1 from me too!
Stop doing business in this disgusting country apple! They don’t want to be progressive, let them slide back to the dark ages. Although I feel terrible for the oppressed living there.
Pay 1 million roubles in fines…
What’s that…like 12 bucks?
Can’t we just nuke the bastards ….please!
Russia is still being led by communists and their policies and behavior proves it to be so. Anyone thinking otherwise are fools, to include the morons from our administration and the State Department.
Hopefully, not all Russians think like that…
The rest of the world points at Russia and laughs.
It’s Father and Son you MORONS! Christ is familial affection illegal in the Russia now? What a messed up country. You know what Russia? Get Vlad out of office and arrest him for the criminal he is and seize his personal $40Bn fortune that he’s amassed extorting “fees” out of businesses that want to operate in Russia. Then get your country back on the path of caring about its citizens and rejoin the world community you bunch of cavemen!