An Android smartphone app called Make Me Asian was finally removed from Google’s Play Store today. This application allowed users to turn their photos into stereotypical Asian caricatures. The creator of this app, “KimberyDeiss”, had created other apps like Make Me Russian and Make Me Indian which were also removed from the Google Play Store.
On November 15 Peter Chin, a Washington D.C. pastor had organized a petition at Change.org which received over 8,452 signatures and Twitter campaigns that petitioned Google to remove the Make Me Asian App. It took Google over two months to finally remove this app. Peter Chin is celebrating the deletion of the app and he also told NPR, “I am deeply thankful to those who realized the danger of these stereotypes entering the mainstream and spoke out against this app, but I am also appreciative of Google, who listened to our concerns and acted accordingly.”
Unlike Apple’s App Store which requires developers’ apps to go through an approval process, Google Play Store allows developers to immediately publish their app, but does allow users to report any offensive or malicious apps for deletion.
Source: NPR http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/01/17/169612676/make-me-asian-app-removed-from-google-play-store
