蘋果(Apple Inc.)的App Store本週強制下架了一款名為Phone Story(手機故事)的遊戲App。
不難想像,Apple必然舉得出極充份的理由跟法令條款來證明其下架決斷是如何得當。
但,Phone Story究竟是怎樣一款遊戲,能惹得Apple非要它下架不可呢?
Phone Story的官網是這樣自我介紹的:
Phone Story is a game for smartphone devices that attempts to provoke a critical reflection on its own technological platform. Under the shiny surface of our electronic gadgets, behind its polished interface, hides the product of a troubling supply chain that stretches across the globe. Phone Story represents this process with four educational games that make the player symbolically complicit in coltan extraction in Congo, outsourced labor in China, e-waste in Pakistan and gadget consumerism in the West.
簡單地說,Phone Story是一款呈現智慧手機(Smart Phone)製程與供應鏈黑暗面的遊戲,Phone Story所能提供的教育意義在於它以遊戲的形式揭露了:任何一支智慧手機都使用了剝削自剛果的礦藏、中國的廉價勞工,以及巴基斯坦的殘渣廢料處理。
蘋果的iPhone自然也在Phone Story的血汗手機指控之列。
有趣的是,Phone Story似乎早已料想到終將被Apple下架的命運,官網上明晃晃掛著「Available on the Android market(可以在Android market下載)」 與「Banned from the App Store(遭到App Store封殺)」兩張貼紙。
Phone Story其實就像是在八大工業國組織(The Group of Eight)高峰會舉牌入場抗議的社會運動人士,無論是被App Store像鎮暴警察一樣強制驅離,或者像Android market一樣很有風度的允許議議發聲,訴諸消費者的良心宣導,或許還是很難改寫智慧手機的血汗故事。
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