Apple has been very sensitive in the past about the apps it has on the Chinese App Store and it seems that Apple has yet again removed two RSS feed readers from there. Apple has been scanning the Chinese apps on its platform for many months now to remove any service which does not sit well with the Chinese sensors. Due to this, Two RSS reader apps, Reeder and Fiery Feed, and their iOS apps that were removed in China over the content regarded as illegal in the country.
Now such apps getting banned in the country is not a new thing and they have been getting banned over the past few years due to multiple reasons. Feed readers of RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, are particularly troubling to the authority because they fetch content from third-party websites. Now, this allows them to bypass the firewall of China and reach information from outside sources which is forbidden information. Although RSS readers in China are not that popular as there are not many in the country, most of the uses get the information from algorithmic news aggregators, which are domestic services that follow the policies of the Chinese government.
Due to this, apps like Feedly are getting removed from the Chinese App Store. Apple has been criticized in the past for deferring to censorship demands from China, a major market for its smartphone and app sale, which definitely goes against the policies of “freedom of information and expression” which is published by Apple for its investors. It seems that even Apple would not go against the mandates of the Chinese government, although it leaves people with limited choices.