After a group of Muslim attackers killed the staff of French satire magazine Charlie Thebdo, the world united to show their support for free speech. "Je Suis Charlie" (French for I am Charlie) went viral worldwide, receiving over 6,500 tweets a minute in the Charlie Thebdo aftermath.
It's no surprise then, that someone created a Je Suis app. The app records your location and posts a pencil wherever you are. The goal is to show how many people support Charlie Thebdo and free speech. The app is currently available on Android and iOS.
In all honesty, the app isn't that interesting-- it's the process it took to get the app up that you should care about.
According to French tech blog iPhon.Fr, French news site Nice-Matin created the app, then (apparently) asked Apple CEO Tim Cook to expedite the app's approval. Cook's assistant replied within 10 minutes with a promise that the app would go up within an hour. It turns out that she was right.
This decision by Apple is a notable action on the company's part, considering that most apps take ten days or so to receive approval from the App Store. The fact that Apple approved it so quickly is a sign of their support.
It wasn't the only sign, however. Apple also provided support for the movement by adding a "Je Suis Charlie" sticker to the bottom of their French site.
Other tech companies have provided just as much support. Google donated over $300,000 to Charlie Thebdo so that they could publish 1,000,000 issues.
