In a series of tweets on Monday, Elon Musk accused Apple of threatening to block Twitter from its App Store and also said Apple had decreased its advertising spending on the social media platform.
Tiyashi Datta and Sheila Dang for Reuters:
The billionaire CEO of Twitter and Tesla also said Apple was pressuring Twitter over content moderation demands.
“Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?,” Musk, who took Twitter private for $44 billion last month, said in a tweet.
He later tagged Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook’s Twitter account in another tweet, asking “what’s going on here?”
Musk also said “yes” in response to a user question on whether Apple was threatening Twitter’s presence in the App Store or making moderation demands.
MacDailyNews Take: The official narrative shall not be disrupted.
“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.” — George R.R. Martin
Tim Cook is either too stupid to realize that he’s in the wrong here or he thinks that you’re too stupid to see it.
Here are some quotes from George Orwell’s 1984 (you know, the one upon which Apple once based an iconic TV commercial):
• Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
• Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.
• The best books… are those that tell you what you know already.
• So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern…Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.
• The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.
• Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.
• And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
One more quote: Think Different.
See also:
• Apple CEO Cook: ‘Fake news’ is ‘killing people’s minds’ – February 11, 2017
• Tim Cook is not the best person to be CEO of Apple – April 2, 2019
• Tim Cook firmly latched Apple onto China’s CCP teat. What’s his plan for weaning it off? – November 2, 2022
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Hey Apple: Stop. The. Drama. This is insane. If any person on earth most resembles Steve Jobs, it is Elon Musk. What are you doing?! Musk is a libertarian, not some far-right ideologue. Man, I spent over a thousand dollars for equipment that is still sitting unused on my shelves as a consequence of last year’s on-device scanning privacy debacle. I was prepared to move off Apple then. Now this?! Why should anyone who values consistency and dependability still buy Apple products? Maybe this is what I get for buying products built with slave labor in a Chinese sweatshop. SMH. I feel like a fool. Argh!!
Dude – You have some major issues… Funny how people think that Twitter is the only way to speak – It is just software and no one is required to have it in their App store period. No one is making anyone buy anything but I will buy whatever makes my life easier and I have nothing to hide so scan away… I have a feeling that Google is the one doing the most scanning and harvesting of data.
“Elon Musk meets Tim Cook, says Apple never considered removing Twitter app”
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/30/elon-musk-meets-tim-cook-says-apple-never-considered-removing-twitter-app-.html
Apparently some people got their panties in a wad for nothing.
I find it amusing how Apple is one of the biggest censors for over a decade now, yet some of their fans criticize other’s far lesser “censorship”. Hint, on your property, it’s allowed.
As usual, MacDailyNews says it best:
From @MrJonCryer on Tw*tter
“I hate to break it to you, @elonmusk
But a company choosing not to advertise on your platform is actually a perfect example of…
Wait for it…
Free speech.”
Yes, but pulling the Twitter app from is app store is censorship, plain and simple.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, the censor is ALWAYS wrong.
Tim Cook cannot be fired fast enough.
But they haven’t done that, have they? Twitter is still available. And if anyone is going to be fired by their board, it’s more likely Musk (from Tesla) than Cook.
The option for Apple to do so is the issue. A problem solved by unblocking 3rd party stores.
Using “Angry” in your name is redundancy.
“Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why.” – Elon Musk Nov. 28, 2022
Elon Musk claims Apple has ‘threatened to withhold’ Twitter from its app store
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/28/tech/elon-musk-twitter-apple-app-store/index.html
Apple is not a private company; it is a public company with shareholders. The company has a reasonable duty to benefit its shareholders. Using the company as a blunt instrument to punish Musk for violating vague or ambiguous TOS will end up being litigated if there is a hint of effect on the bottom line or share price.
No speech is not free speech, it is censorship.
Cook pulling advertising is a boycott and punitive action against Twitter’s free speech. But more importantly, retaliation for thinking different and not a robot to Leftist orthodoxy.
Cook is playing with fire and hope it burns him in the end. This public fight and dependence on Communist slave labor, fingers crossed he finally loses his job…
Other than speech used to commit a crime or otherwise unlawfully harm, I agree with you.
Are thought crimes next?…
@GoeB
Short answer: No!
Long Answer: Nooooooooooooo!
Many companies have pulled their advertising from Twitter because of Musk’s bizarre and chaotic handling of his takeover. This has nothing to do with free speech – it has to do with economics.
If Musk somehow manages to get Twitter running well, then advertisers will most likely return, Apple included.
Pulling Twitter from the App Store is another story entirely. If Musk allows blatantly false and harmful posts which contravene Apple’s terms, then he will be solely to blame if the Twitter app is removed.
And good luck to Musk if he tries to launch a TwitterPhone as he has suggested. It will end up as Apple roadkill.
As usual you exploit a temporary situation to damage anyone not a Leftist or Democrat.
Apple restored its advertising and others coming back, not to mention new advertisers that would not support the cancel conservatives Twitter.
As for Musk’s behavior I’m sure he couldn’t care pass how you describe it. Here is how I describe it: Musk is a mercurial CREATIVE GENIUS the closest to Steve Jobs than anyone on Planet Earth.
To show up first day of work carrying a kitchen sink was a metaphorical MASTERSTROKE!..,
A company can remove or allow anything they want.
If Twitter wants to allow hate speech, so be it, but they’re going to have to eventually suffer the consequences for violating the terms of the companies they depend on.
If it gets bad enough, AWS might even drop them like they did Parler.
Since you seem to agree that Elon is free to allow anything he wants on Twitter, then Apple absolutely is free to drop Twitter from the App Store if they so choose.
This site appears to be the Musk Daily News now. Are you actively trying to get Mac users to go elsewhere to find anything relevant to the Mac?
Re: free speech. Recite the famous amendment until you get its meaning. Censorship is not and never was a constitutional issue. It is a regulatory issue. If you want corporations to have responsibilities, you’d have to vote for representatives that write better regulation on those companies. Instead you have unwaveringly cheered for corporate puppets, and now you act surprised when dominant worldwide corporations like Apple have the ability to do anything they want with impunity. You got the laissez-faire marketplace without rules you voted for, they got the tax haven networks and cheap Chinese labor they wanted, plus dominant market power, and now you’re whining again. Citizens United giving corporations full rights without any responsibilities wasn’t such a great move after all.
So now after cheering for AAPL to hit the moon, you find yourself are shadow boxing in a dark overcast night with weak arguments against the California fruit company. Constitutionality doesn’t apply, and you know it. You railed against corporate regulation, so there is none that would hold Apple or any other closed platform’s feet to the fire. Why you have sympathy for druggy Musk’s lack of ad revenue is beyond anyone here. I buy Mac and PC apps specifically to AVOID ads on my electronics, and use iPhones sparingly because that has also become an ad-infested mess. Musk has done nothing to deter foreign state-sponsored trolls from spreading disinformation as he claimed he would, and it appears he’ll never have adequate staff to validate anybody but his favorite few narcissists.
So why should Apple care? They have their own income streams, they have no legal responsibilities, and Musk doesn’t respect them. Musk is the one standing on thin ice. Don’t like it? Go tell Musk to make mobile phones.
Change in subject: ads. This should be the more pertinent news to Apple users and investors, at least those who prioritize user experience over Musk’s latest whiney meltdown:
https://www.businessinsider.com/apples-app-store-has-become-an-ad-plagued-version-of-its-former-self-2022-11
Many people warned from day one that iOS, unlike the Mac, gave Apple dominant market-changing power. But the cheerleaders liked the profit and said nothing while the global smartphone market consolidated into A versus G. One company never promised free speech on its platforms, it pointedly banned violence, porn and stuff since well before Cook took the reins – and reserves the right to do whatever it wants to app developers because, duh, it’s a thin client platform, not a personal computer for which the user has final control. The other half of the duopoly makes no pretense about snooping in everything you say or type, as you are the product on all Google (or Meta, or Twitter, or TikTok, Snap, Whatsapp, etc. freebie apps). Apple has the power to remove any and all of these from their store if they want. They are the monopoly power, and Musk can continue to pound sand if he doesn’t play to the piper’s tune.
As Muck watches his cash burn and his increasingly erratic behavior yields more desperation & less useful communication, it won’t be Schiller alone who moves on. The remaining troll network will scream away their unhinged cacophony but the major advertisers who kept Twitter alive, not to mention the dedicated IT professionals that Musky threw under the bus, will all go elsewhere.
Your new hero’s imploding app is outpaced on https://apps.apple.com/us/charts/iphone/top-free-apps/36 by stuff you apparently haven’t ever looked into .. like Telemundo, the 13th most popular downloaded iOS app. There are 3 communication platforms ahead of the Chief Twit’s latest company on the US download rankings and worldwide it looks even worse. We await your analysis as to what this means. My take: Musk’s magic wore off long ago, a real manager would have used a scalpel instead of a chain saw. Sad that you can’t see it.
Now keep your Musk News followers abreast of his latest factory in China. Hypocrisy? Yeah he owns that too.
Thank you for an enlightening, accurate (nitpick below), and thoughtful argument.
Here’s the nit…
“One company never promised free speech on its platforms, it pointedly banned violence, porn and stuff since well before Cook took the reins – and reserves the right to do whatever it wants to app developers because, duh, it’s a thin client platform”
Code is executed on device for many (most?) apps, so “thin client” doesn’t exactly apply. The device is not the property of Apple’s to censor, neither are the third party apps.
The device isn’t Apple’s to control, but iOS is, and so is the App Store.
If you don’t like how Apple manages their platform, you’re free to choose the alternative option.
If you think Apple should be forced to allow hate speech on their platform, then they should also be required to allow sideloading and alternative stores.
Quite the controversial topic, breaking down the walls of the garden.
Apple is free to carry whatever they wish in their store. Sideloading and alternative stores are the solution. Want to stay walled in? Don’t open the gate. Simple.
PS- They don’t own the device or the 3rd party Apps. My copy of iOS falls under fair use.
MDN take(s)
Your misappropriation of literature is ignorant at best and actively dishonest at worst.
Here’s another quote for you that explains your self-serving lack of education.
“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism, as I understand it.”
— George Orwell
…I’ll bet that doesn’t fit your narrative.
Now you can go back to burning books and denying your own history. Eric Blair would have been appalled.
Apple choosing where to, and where not to, advertise is free speech. Why does Elon Musk hate the free market?
Now, do Apple censoring apps from the app store — a completely different story.
Apple didn’t have a problem with child porn being on Twitter but free speech is where they draw the line?
Says a lot, doesn’t it?
Fire Tim Cook.
Hello Straw Man. Who said “Apple didn’t have a problem with child porn being on Twitter”?? Has there EVER been child porn on Twitter that wasn’t almost immediately pulled by the admins. That’s what the App Store (and Google Play) require of social media apps: that “harmful” content be removed by admins. It’s why Parler didn’t get immediately approved on the App Store, and was only recently approved by Google.
Of course, those pesky content admins are mostly gone from Twitter now, thanks to Musk’s little staffing meltdown(s). Apple and Google have every right to pull the app if content moderation — not censorship — isn’t maintained.
The law should be the moderator, not Apple as sole arbiter over our property.
Take your head out of the sand. Child porn was flourishing on Twitter. There were 86,000 reports of the sexual exploitation of children in 2021. Twitter was actually sued for not removing illegal material. And Tim Cook’s Apple was happily advertising there.
After Musk took over, in about a week, they shut down the hashtags that pedos use to find each other. Now, Tim Cook refuses to advertise on Twitter. Go figure.
https://www.newsweek.com/while-blue-checks-whine-about-extremism-elon-musk-protecting-sexually-exploited-children-opinion-1761383
Only pedos would downvote this comment. You know who you are.
“ Twitter was actually sued for not removing illegal material.”
As I said, the law….
Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.“
For this very reason, please oppose legalization of marijuana
Watch out for Elon Musk’s alternative smartphone would kill iPhones. Apple should not provoke Elon Musk to become competitor. Don’t underestimate Elon Musk, a small thorns could spread into cancers.
That’s funny.
Do you seriously think Elon could make a smartphone OS to compete against both Android and iOS, much less an entire phone?
Microsoft tried, they brought a desirable product to the table, but developers just weren’t interested, and it flopped.
You can’t have a smartphone without developers, and any new competitor into the market won’t have enough share to attract them.
It can be an Android phone. Not that I would be getting it necessarily.
The luster of Apple is gone. It is no longer a company of amazing people making insanely great products. Why anybody wants to buy their products or be associated with the current Apple is beyond the pale.
Those that do support Tim Cook’s Apple are as stupid as that Hollywood ignoramus, Alyssa Milano, who traded her Elon Musk’s Tesla for a Volkswagen EV, because according to her, “’I’m not sure how advertisers can buy space on Twitter. Publicly traded company’s products being pushed in alignment with hate and white supremacy doesn’t seem to be a winning business model.”
As was pointed out to this idiot concerned about hate and white supremacy, “Volkswagen was literally founded by the Nazi’s and Hitler.”
And, sadly, Apple’s idiot Tim Cook wants to follow that same line of stupidity.
https://media.patriots.win/post/0uuWW4jeAuvU.jpeg
Yes, if Hitler were still Chancellor of Germany, I’d be hesitant to buy a VW, too. And if Hirohito was still emperor of Japan, I would never have purchased my last two Hondas. But both are long gone. Meanwhile, Musk is doing whatever he’s doing with Twitter today. And Ms. Milano is not the only person who’s questioning whether their next car will be a Tesla.
Social media (well not this site) is flooded with folks who say they’ve dropped any plan to buy a Tesla for their next car specifically because they can’t stand the public prattling of Elon Musk. It’s a good reason why their stock is down roughly 50% in the past year (from $379.00 on 11/29/21 to $182.92 today).
Yes, like Jobs, Tesla is a true visionary (let’s face it, his Supercharger network was a stroke of genius). But unlike Steve, Elon doesn’t seem to have anyone that keeps him tethered to reality, at least not at Twitter. And public sentiment can quickly turn on visionaries who start believing in their own hype. Don’t believe me? Just ask Kanye.
Apple does make insanely great products… overprice? absolutely… but no competitor has offered something of comparable power that provides the same battery life and size.
There’s a reason why whenever Apple introduces a new product line that other companies almost immediately copy them.
Sure, there are Android devices that can come close on power, or battery life, but they usually manage to do so by using a larger battery.
Tim Cook isn’t the idiot.
Political articles like this are why I’m unsubscribing from macdailynews. Apple are protecting their interests, they don’t want some fake account to make their stock tank like what happened with lockheed martin. Only natural. They’ll resume activities once it’s all sorted.
Whatever. What is pretty safe to say is that Twitter is not going to help anyone build cars or launch rockets any better/faster/cheaper.
“Many companies have pulled their advertising from Twitter because of Musk’s bizarre and chaotic handling of his takeover.”
Update: Apple has resumed all their advertising. Musk’s behavior is of a mercurial creative genius. “Bizarre and chaotic” defines the radical left, get it straight.
“Pulling Twitter from the App Store is another story entirely. If Musk allows blatantly false and harmful posts which contravene Apple’s terms”
But you’re OK with a Leftist Apple only targeting Musk and conservative Apps. While at the same time not a peep about Iran destroying Israel, terrorist Apps and comments from rouge regimes.
Got it. Another garden variety LEFTIST HYPOCRITE!…