Apple Inc. Removes Confederate Flag From App Store: ‘Offensive’ Flag Use Leads Apple To Remove Civil War Games

Apple is removing apps from the App Store that use the Confederate flag in offensive ways, in a ban that has stretched to Civil War games like “Ultimate General: Gettysburg” and the Hunted Cow “Civil War” games.

According to TouchArcade, Apple appears to be removing all apps with instances of the Confederate flag, regardless of context. Speaking to TouchArcade, Andrew from HexWar games, developer of Civil War games, said: “We're in no way sympathetic to the use of the flag in an offensive way, we used it purely because historically that was the flag that was used at the time.”

Apple has emailed developers to inform them that their app has been removed from the App Store "because it includes images of the confederate flag used in offensive and mean-spirited ways." In a tweet following the South Carolina shooting, Tim Cook called for “removing the symbols & words that feed [racism].”

The news follows moves by a slew of retailers to remove the Confederate flag from stores, including Amazon, Walmart and Alibaba. Lawmakers are starting to debate in multiple states over the future of the Confederate flag, with Mississippi debating whether to remove the flag from the canton, or top inner corner, of its own flag.

Google has yet to make a similar move, with apps such as “American Civil War Gazette” and “North vs South” still available. The Steam store has games such as “Civil War II” and “Battleplan: American Civil War" available, while Amazon, despite the retailer stopping sales of physical flags, appears to still be offering Civil War games for Android that depict the flag. Apple PR was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.