Chocolat author Joanne Harris blasted the app , saying what starts out with blanking out a few words ends with 'burning libraries ' As one person bluntly put , it is ‘ f****** horrifying ’ . An app that blanks out swear words in e-books has prompted outrage among writers including Chocolat author Joanne Harris , who have accused it of censoring their work without permission . Last night Mrs Harris , 50 , took to her blog to write a scathing critique of the Clean Reader application which has been designed to help parents protect their children from explicit content . It operates on a sliding scale from ‘ clean ’ , which removes only the worst swear words , to ‘ squeaky clean ’ which even takes out ‘ damn ’ . Condemning the app on her blog , in a post titled ‘ why I ’ m saying “ f*** you ” to Clean Reader ’ , Mrs Harris , whose book was turned into a Hollywood film starring Juliette Binoche , 51 , and Johnny Depp , 51 , likened the programme to examples of suppression from history . She said : 'Anyone who works with words understands their power . Words , if used correctly , can achieve almost anything . 'To tamper with what is written – however much we may dislike certain words and phrases – is to embrace censorship . ‘ We ’ ve been down this road before . We should know where it leads by now . It starts with blanking out a few words . It goes on to drape table legs and stick fig leaves onto statues . 'It progresses to denouncing gay or Jewish artists as “ degenerate ” . It ends with burning libraries and erasing whole civilizations from history. ’ She added : ‘ Apps like Clean Reader change the text without the author ’ s permission . 'They take the author ’ s words and replace them – sometimes very clumsily – on the basis of some perceived idea of “ bad words ” versus “ good words ” . 'No permission is sought , or granted . There is no opt-out clause for authors or publishers. ’ Mrs Harris was not the only writer to take offence to the app , which is downloadable on Apple and Android devices and is free . Laurie Penny , a journalist and author , said : ‘ There ’ s now an app for taking the swearwords out of books . I find this f****** horrifying ’ . Charlie Stross , a science fiction writer wrote on Twitter : ‘ This - from an author ’ s point of view - is an obscenity : algorithmic censorship of ebooks. ’ The app has three settings , clean , cleaner and squeaky clean ( left ) that will blank out offensive words on a table reader . The 'squeaky clean ' setting will even cross out 'damn ' and 'darn ' ( right ) Linda Acaster , a novelist from Yorkshire , argued : ‘ The first act of a dictatorship is to censor books . The second is to ban them . The third is to burn them. ’ And last night members of the public waded into the row , with one posting on Twitter : ‘ A horrifying slippery slope ’ Another wrote : ‘ Really bad news . And damn stupid . See what I did there Clean Reader ! ’ In an attempt to placate the anger , messages were posted by the Clean Reader Twitter account , including one which read : I ’ m sure the F-word isn ’ t the only thing that makes your books great ! ’ But it only appeared to add fire to the row , with one writer posting ‘ you should have a very serious think about your app . It ’ s censorship , plain and simple. ’ Clean Reader was designed by American couple Jared and Kirsten Maughan amid concern about a book their daughter had read . Publicity material for the app , states : ‘ We told her that there was probably an app for this type of thing that would replace profanity with less offensive words and perhaps we should get her a tablet that she could use to read books with . ‘ To our surprise there wasn ’ t an app like this . The more we thought about this idea the more we wanted it to be a reality . 'Eventually we decided we would do all we could to bring Clean Reader to the world . ’
Joanne Harris , author of Chocolat , has lead charge against censoring app . Said app was no different to suppression of books throughout history . Software blocks offensive words in e-books , including the word 'damn '