Apple Backtracks After Removing All Traces of Confederate Flag From App Store

Apple has reinstated selected games featuring the Confederate flag after receiving accusations of censorship for pulling all apps featuring the controversial symbol from its app store.

The tech giant stated that it had removed apps using the flag in ‘offensive or mean-spirited ways’, but that the flag would be permitted for ‘education or historical uses’.

However, several American Civil War games - arguably both educational and historical - were also removed as part of the cull.

Apple has since reinstated several games including ‘Ultimate General: Gettysburg’ though it is reportedly not allowing the use of the Confederate flag in app icons or screen shots that appear on the app store.

Use of the flag has been put under intense scrutiny after Dylann Roof, who is accused of the racially motivated murder of nine black people in a church in South Carolina, was pictured holding the flag in online pictures found after his arrest.

The flag, which has been adopted by numerous white supremacist organisations, was used as a pro-slavery symbol of the southern confederate states during the American Civil War and critics argue that it still bears racist connotations.

After it was revealed that the controversial flag still flies outside the South Carolina Statehouse following the murders, a public outcry led to its removal from other government buildings, though not yet from the Statehouse itself.

Etsy, eBay, Amazon and Google have all stopped selling goods bearing the Confederate flag while Warner Brother has stopped production of replicas of ‘General Lee’ - the car from TV show The Dukes of Hazzard which famously features the Confederate flag painted on its roof.