I’ve previously documented Josh Begley‘s trials with Apple over his Metadata+ app that tracks each new US drone strike.  Metadata+ was removed from the app store on Sunday for its ‘exceptionally crude or objectionable content.’  Really.

Kate Conger reports:

Begley compiled his information on drone strikes from news reports, so it’s strange to see his app banned while the news apps that report on drone strikes remain. Metadata+ is, at heart, a journalism project and the decision to remove it is a decision about what kinds of journalism Apple deems unacceptable.

Even more revealing is Apple’s determination to shoot the messenger: it’s not the drone strikes that provoke their ire – hardly surprising, since they rely on technologies that are intimately entangled with digital platforms like the iPhone – but information about them.