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4/4/19 update – and pre-Call To Action

Erotickles

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This is a local communities building app. It is designed to allow users to “form local groups of like minded people, interact, make new friends, arrange meetups in real life, and hopefully – form meaningful relationships of all sorts”.
An app is not “pornographic” or "sexual" just because it is aimed for subscribers to an alternative sexual orientation. An easy example to this would be an IDENTICAL app aimed at the LGBT community.
In a conscious effort to make the app friendly and legit:
*The app does not allow sharing of any media between users, publicly or privately – so it cannot be used to share pornography, nor does it contain itself anything that can be considered as adult graphics.
*The tutorial shown upon first app launch clearly states its being free of any adult-graphics. It states its aim to service community interaction - and the banning of the sale of any sexual or semi-sexual services between users. It further calls on its users to help make it a safe and inviting space.

The above text is the statement I sent Google, in response to the message I got from them yesterday evening: The app “Tickles in your area” was suspended, due to “Violation of Sexually Explicit Content policy”.

There is no real reason for this suspension, and there are some indications that it was actually an automated action, triggered by the “boogyman” words: “human sexuality” and “kinksters” - in the app’s description.

I do hope that my appeal will be accepted shortly, and I hope a similar problem – which I am sure is just waiting to happen on the Apple front – will too be solved swiftly too if it indeed arises.

However – this may not work fluently. This may turn out to be our first “all hands on deck” test:

We may need to go on a letter writing campaign – just to be recognized – just to convince that we deserve a place in the world.

To be continued.


Apart from that – a few other updates:
I have been working on preparing the app for IOS. This is ongoing. There were further some design changes and bug fixes since the recording of the demo video.

suspention scrrenshot.png
 
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I think maybe mentioning pornographic words may have caused it to be suspended to be honest. Maybe don't do that next time.
 
Just describe it as an app for people that like tickling. THATS it.
 
Silicon Valley is becoming more and more prudish and authoritarian as of late. If I were in your position, I would look at the descriptions of dating apps like Bumble, Grindr, and OkCupid to see what kind of language they use in the description, and use those as a template.

When it comes to Android, there's always the option to distribute the APK outside the Play Store (at least until you make it through Google's approval process) via third-party repositories like F-Droid.

Finally, are you planning on doing any beta testing? I'd be happy to assist with that.
 
Probably a bot that did the flagging. I agree with Happy Touch, find a third party to distribute the app. That's what Fetlife does. Google is really strict about stuff like that and they only ever really break their policies when a big corporation is involved giving them money. Lol.
 
Another thought occurred to me: What about a (progressive) web app? A website that behave like the app?

That way it would be platform agnostic, and wouldn't require you to go through any approval process.

Here are some examples: https://medium.com/@the_manifest/11-examples-of-progressive-web-apps-944f6db25a5a

At the very least, it could prove to be a great starting point while continuing to work on the apps; you might be able to use the apps as wrappers for the site itself to save yourself time and effort (though I am admittedly not a developer, so correct me if I'm grossly oversimplifying things).
 
My apologies for the times it takes me to respond to your comments.


I got sick, and am having a difficult to do - well - mostly anything...
 
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My apologies for the times it takes me to respond to your comments.


I have fallen ill, and am having a difficult to do - well - mostly anything...
Yessir I hope you do get to feeling better.. if this app lets us connect with people who love tickling this is awesome
 
A late, proper Reply :)

So:

  1. Thanks for the "get well" wishes. I am much better!
  2. Yes, the flagging was most probably made by a crawler script.
  3. It was exactly because of apps such as the ones you mentioned - that there was no reason for concern - until that stupid auto script flagged the app. In fact, this text was there for a few months as placeholder text for future revision before launch. And then the crawler showed up.
  4. After a back and forth with someone there, and explaining things at length - it appears the app was un-suspended. I hope we don't get another surprise later... However - there was a need to fight this fight - because every time they suspend your app you get penalty points - and I (All of us, really) - cannot afford that they block me as a developer altogether because we did not fight their prejudice, and their automated bigoted robots added penalty points to my account for this or other arbitrary reason till it would be blocked.
  5. Sometimes you need to choose your battles, but this was not the case. Being on Google Play Store means visibility and availability to many users. Going to alternative stores - or even settling for a website or PWA - will limit the audience of the app greatly. As you may have noticed - the app is now avialable as a web app - but it is not instead - it is - for now - meanwhile - till we get the mobile thing rolling. We have to think outside of the current platforms we use as a community and the current community circles in general. Right now, the people who are here on the TMF and on Fetlife, are a very specific segment of the potential community. It is people who do not mind - or otherwise are even interested in - a very graphic environment. Its not a judgmental thing (I am here too, aren't I?) - it is just an observation. But Let's make no mistakes about this: In order to build diverse local communities - the app is not enough. It is a tool - but it will not come instead a much needed paradigm shift, into an activist community, that creates content outside of its forums and Fetlife groups, does PR work, and tells the world about this thing called a tickling fetish.

    The people out there - the ones we MUST act to reach - they need to have it accessible in the default, trusted, app store that they use. This is why I warranted that we may need to go on a letter writing campaign
    (though it does not have to be letter writing - there are other (equally lawful, of course) ways to be more trouble than you are worth for a corporation to make it invest 5 more minutes in the review before blowing you off - and getting the stamp of approval that shouldn't have been refused in the first place)

Look, If we want things to change - we must do things differently than we did them so far. The LGBT community - a community that started from an even less advantaged position than ours - did it - and still does it - Amazingly. there is much to learn from their activism mindset, drive, and ability to CHANGE things. I suggest we learn from them as a model - and from other social involvement and change groups


I urge you to look at my response to MorningAngel's query on Fetlife - specifically - my response to the second question of the two. (What can we do against the male:female imbalance)
 
Late hour, long sentences. My apologies :-D
just... put periods in the places that look... most... correct to you... ok? :blush:
 
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