As of noon yesterday, the Toronto-based 500px photo-sharing app can no longer be found in the Apple App store. The app’s removal came shortly after the company had been contacted by an App Store reviewer who wouldn’t approve their latest update for iOS since it allowed users to search for nude photos (because it’s not like there’s any other way to find naked pictures on your phone). Initially 500px was offered the opportunity to fix the nudity problem, but the change would take a day and an hour after being notified of the issue, Apple informed the company that the app would be pulled entirely.

While nude photography can be found on 500px, COO Evgeny Tchebotarev says it’s not as easily accessible as Apple makes it out to be. New users’ accounts for 500px are in a default ‘safe’ mode, which means photos with nudity are hidden — the only way to remove the safe search is for users to visit the app’s desktop site. As for the images, the nudes are of an artistic nature and Tchebotarev says pornography is not allowed and if found will be deleted. However, Apple’s official statement about 500px’s removal paints a different picture:

“The app was removed from the App Store for featuring pornographic images and material, a clear violation of our guidelines. We also received customer complaints about possible child pornography. We’ve asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app.”

All the same, 500px is making and submitting the changes required by Apple, which hopefully means that they’ll be back in the App Store soon.

[via PetaPixel, TechCrunch]

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Hallae Khosravi is an intern at Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter @hallaek.  

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