Microsoft: Tea Party App "Divisive" for Report on Islamic Terrorism

The Obama Administration's IRS criminally targeted the tea party, Jewish, and minority conservative groups to interfere with the 2012 election. The DOJ targeted reporters to silence scandals during the election. The White House jailed an innocent man to support the Benghazi cover-up prior to the election. Government, however, might not be the only powerful entity in America bullying groups. Microsoft may be discriminating against the tea party on the Windows App Store.

Our tea party group, The San Diego Local Order of Bloggers (The SLOBs), is not based on political party, religion, race, gender, age or sexual orientation. We are concerned with taxes and the growth of government as it infringes upon civil rights. Occasionally, we address other important issues as individuals concerned for the freedom of humanity. The tea party is about civil rights.

Our Windows 8 app is the only tea party news app on the Windows App Store. A recent technical update to our app was rejected by Microsoft's testers as "divisive" because one article discussed the roots of Islamic supremacists.

Bloggers use attention grabbing story titles. The post in question is titled, "Islam: Violence Emanates from its Core." Microsoft's reviewers use personal judgement in reviewing content compliance issues. In fairness, it is understandable that this post was subjected to review based upon the title. Lets look at this article. The article begins:

The Boston Marathon bombings, by a seemingly “average” college student and his more obviously troubled and radicalized older brother has led to discussion on our policy towards Muslim immigrants; and our Visa policy regarding foreign students in general. What it should also trigger is a meaningful policy discussion on the nature of Islamic violence. Because unlike any other religion in the world, violence is an integral part of Islam.

The problem lies within the Quran itself.

Microsoft's reviewers noted:

The content in this app appeared, to our reviewers, to be to divisive.

The precise violation referenced is:

5.2 Your app must not contain content that advocates discrimination, hatred, or violence based on membership in a particular racial, ethnic, national, linguistic, religious, or other social group, or based on a person’s gender, age, or sexual orientation

There are two concerns with this content issue.

1. The certification requirements do not specify "divisive" as a violation. "Divisive" is a subjective term that might apply to dog lovers who are offended by pictures of cats. ( KT Cat would be "divisive.")
2. "This is one example of the issue." This statement suggests that there are multiple examples of "content that advocates discrimination, hatred, or violence."  There are not.

Obviously, the post topic is politics and religion, but there is no "advocating discrimination, hatred or violence." It is quite the opposite. The article opposes violence perpetrated by those who are part of a violent subset of the Islamic faith.

But to the truly dedicated, observant, fundamentalist Muslims these more cerebral (nice) Muslims aren’t really Muslims at all. To the ones we call “radicals”, a real Muslim has the Allah-given task of converting, enslaving, or killing the rest of us.

“Good Muslims” are commanded to kill other Muslims who stray from the path.  Consequently, the nice Muslims have to keep their mouths shut. This slows down the spread of the nicer varieties of Islam; while the radicalization of Mosques (or ”cells” within those Mosques) goes unabated.

The topic in this article is controversial. It is not politically correct, but it is factually correct and observable.

Since 9/11/01, there has been an average of 5 attacks a day by Muslim terrorists!

The blog post in question was written prior to the beheading of British soldier Lee Rigby in London by a British born convert to Islam and his friend. Since the post, video by Human Rights Watch showed a Syrian rebel eating a soldier's heart to the chant "Allahu Akbar." Currently, the top story on Google news is President Obama's comment that America is at a "crossroads" in fighting terrorism.

"America has confronted many forms of violent extremism in our time. Deranged or alienated individuals - often U.S. citizens or legal residents - can do enormous damage, particularly when inspired by larger notions of violent jihad," Mr. Obama said. "Homegrown extremists. This is the future of terrorism."

To stop the terrorism, we must understand it. To understand it, we must discuss it from all perspectives. There is an observable trend around the world which must be considered for the sake of survival. Because Americans are intimidated from honest debate on Islamic terrorism, President Obama made this statement today:

Moreover, we have to recognize that these threats don’t arise in a vacuum.  Most, though not all, of the terrorism we faced is fueled by a common ideology — a belief by some extremists that Islam is in conflict with the United States and the West, and that violence against Western targets, including civilians, is justified in pursuit of a larger cause.  Of course, this ideology is based on a lie, for the United States is not at war with Islam.  And this ideology is rejected by the vast majority of Muslims, who are the most frequent victims of terrorist attacks.

Nevertheless, this ideology persists, and in an age when ideas and images can travel the globe in an instant, our response to terrorism can’t depend on military or law enforcement alone. We need all elements of national power to win a battle of wills, a battle of ideas.  So what I want to discuss here today is the components of such a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy.

First, we must finish the work of defeating al Qaeda and its associated forces.

This statement is a failure of leadership. It is lukewarm to the observable threat. These comments are a politically correct mess from a man trying to manage his image without uttering "Islam." A fate that Microsoft might impose on us via the term "divisive."

Word Warrior does not mince words on the subject. To be fair and balanced, his conclusion does use the term "evil". Those unable or unwilling to consider the point of the article could challenge the semantics of the conclusion:

Religiously, it is unique to Islam. There are no Christian terrorist organizations or movements, financing and sponsoring terrorism in the name of Christ. Nor are there any such Buddhist nor Hindu groups.

Liberals hate the idea of evil. But radical Islam is as evil in the 21st Century as Christianity sometimes was in the Middle Ages. And Islam has no prospect of getting any better, of internal reformation because the evil in it comes from its most fundamental tenets.

The evil in Christianity came from ignoring its fundamental tenets.

Conclusion

Word Warrior explored Islamic supremacists, but does not "advocates discrimination, hatred, or violence." He is reporting on a hard truth in an effort to save lives. We hope that Microsoft reviewers keep this in mind when reviewing our technical app update which has nothing to do with content.

With all this said, the post in question is no longer displayed in our app. The SLOBs app includes dozens of articles. The articles update with the news cycle and feature only the most recent posts. Most of the content is created by our authors, but we also include feeds from respected news organizations as supplemental information on our top story. The constant updates keep our content dynamic and fresh.

We also have an Android app which has been perfected over many revisions. It never ran into similar content issues. As bloggers, we consistently deal with politically incorrect issues. The issue of Islamic terrorism is one topic requiring open discussion despite pressures to acquiescence to intimidation and fear.

We have re-submitted app Release 3 to the Windows App Store. It will be interesting to see what they say this time.

How to Help

Please go download our free Windows App and support our efforts. Hopefully, Release 3 will be waiting for you to download.

If you are interested in reaching tea party members, consider purchasing an advertisement for the "SLOBS W8" ad unit under the category "News" (250px by 250px). We have graphics to help you create your ad.

UPDATE: A Happy Ending

Revision 3 was approved by Microsoft and is now on the Windows App Store.