Stars Barred

Confederate flag removed

The history of the Confederate flag was placed under a bright, hot spotlight after Dylann Roof allegedly killed nine people, all black, in a shooting spree inside a Charleston, South Carolina, church in June.

Roof's apparent racist motivations drew attention to the fact that the Confederate battle flag still flew on South Carolina's State House grounds and that Confederate flag memorabilia was available for purchase from stores and online vendors. South Carolina politicians began debating what to do about the flag. In the meantime, responding to public pressure, such retailers as Walmart and Amazon announced they would stop selling products emblazoned with Confederate symbols.

But as companies started purging the offending products from their marketplaces, some took a bit too broad of a view of what to target. The Apple Store kicked some Civil War strategy game apps out of its system simply because the Confederate flag appeared somewhere in them. Several Civil War strategy board games disappeared from sale at Amazon.com, along with some apps that allowed users to read actual news stories printed in American publications during the Civil War.

Fortunately, after some significant media coverage, the vendors realized they had gone overboard. The games and apps eventually returned to the markets.