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Baby Shaker banned from App Store

Complaints received from children’s campaigners

Baby Shaker banned from App Store
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| Baby Shaker

A game, if you can call it that, was released on the App Store earlier in the week called Baby Shaker, which required you to shake your handset to send a baby off to sleep.

The application received complaints almost immediately, and was removed by Apple just two days after it was approved.

“This application was deeply offensive and should not have been approved for distribution on the App Store,” said Apple after it removed Baby Shaker from the App Store. “We sincerely apologise for this mistake and thank our customers for bringing this to our attention.”

The game itself depicted rather basic, unanimated line drawings of babies that, when shaken enough, were shown to go to sleep by two large red X’s appearing across their eyes. A disclaimer was also shown upon loading, stating “Never shake a baby”.

The complaints were received from a variety of children’s groups and brain injury campaigners, including Jetta Bernier, executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Children, who told The Telegraph:

“I am disheartened that with this new application Apple is encouraging frustrated adults to shake infants, not only to end their crying, but to end their lives. There are many effective infant soothing strategies that adults can use to calm their fussy, crying babies. Shaking is not one of them.”

Here's a video of the app, so you can see what all the fuss is about.

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Spanner Spencer
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.