Elon Musk claimed on Monday that Apple “threatened” to pull Twitter from its iOS app store, a move that could be devastating for the company Musk just acquired for $44 billion.
“Apple (AAPL) also threatened to pull Twitter from its App Store, but didn’t tell us why,” Musk said in one of several tweets on Monday that pointed to Apple (AAPL) and its CEO for alleged actions they took. could harm Twitter. the business.
+ Wall Street closes sharply under the impact of concerns about Apple and China
In another tweet, Musk claimed that Apple has virtually stopped advertising on Twitter. “Do they hate free speech in America?” he said, in an apparent reference to his oft-stated desire to reinforce his idea of free speech on the platform. “What’s going on here [CEO da Apple, Tim Cook]🇧🇷 Musk added in a follow-up tweet. He also criticized Apple’s size, claimed it practices “censorship” and drew attention to the 30% transaction fee Apple charges major app developers to be listed on its app store.
The storm of tweets highlights the tenuous relationship between Musk and Apple, which along with Google act as the main gatekeepers of mobile apps. Long before taking over Twitter, Tesla’s CEO said that when the automaker was experiencing difficulties, he considered selling the company to Apple, but that Cook refused to do a meeting with him.
Removing Apple’s, or Google’s, app store would be detrimental to the business of Twitter, which is already struggling with the loss of advertisers following the Musk acquisition and a difficult initial attempt to expand its subscription business.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk’s tweets. The company has previously shown it is willing to remove apps from its app store due to concerns about its ability to moderate harmful content or if they try to circumvent Apple’s cut in in-app purchases and subscriptions.
In January 2021, Apple removed Parler, an app popular with conservatives including some members of the far right, from its app store following the attack on the United States Capitol due to concerns about the platform’s ability to detect and moderate speech and incitement to hate. Parler returned to Apple’s app store three months later after updating its content moderation practices.
In its official app store review guidelines, Apple lists several safety parameters that apps must adhere to in order to be included in the store, including the ability to prevent “content that is offensive, insensitive, disruptive, intended to disgust, from exceptionally bad taste, or just plain creepy,” such as hate speech, pornography, and terrorism. “If you want to shock and offend people, the App Store is not the right place for your app,” the guidelines state.
Several civil society groups, researchers and other industry observers have raised concerns about Twitter’s ability to effectively moderate harmful content and maintain the platform’s security following widespread layoffs and mass departures of employees from the company. Musk has also stated that he wants to expand “free speech” on the platform and has begun restoring some accounts that were previously banned or suspended for repeatedly violating Twitter’s rules. Musk himself has shared a conspiracy theory and several other controversial tweets since he took over Twitter.
Musk, long a prolific and antagonistic tweeter, has not let up since taking over the company. And what he may have lost in revenue, he claimed he made up for in engagement. Part of the strategy seems to be relentlessly targeting enemies, be it his personally or “free speech”.
In an interview with CBS earlier this month, Cook was asked if there was any way Twitter could change that would cause Apple to remove it from the app store. “They say they’re going to continue to moderate and so… I’m counting on them to do that,” Cook responded. “Because I don’t think anyone really wants hate speech on their platform. So I’m counting on them to keep doing that.”
In an op-ed in the New York Times last week, Twitter’s former head of trust and security Yoel Roth, who left the company earlier this month, suggested that Twitter had already started taking calls from grocery store operators. applications after the acquisition of Musk. Roth said the company’s failure to adhere to Google and Apple’s app store rules could be “catastrophic”.
And this past weekend, Apple’s app store boss Phil Schiller deleted his Twitter account.
While the state of the relationship between Apple and Twitter is unclear, the iPhone maker was running Black Friday ads on the platform last Thursday, according to posts seen by CNN.
Many companies have cut back on digital ad spend in recent months as the economy has slumped, and Twitter has probably always only represented a small portion of Apple’s ad budget. Apple’s impact on Twitter, however, could be far more significant, including if Musk manages to change his core business to be more reliant on subscription revenue and potentially have to pay Apple a 30% cut.
In a tweet on Monday, Musk asked his nearly 120 million followers if they knew that “Apple puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy from the App Store?” In another tweet, he posted a photo of a highway exit: one banner pointed to “pay 30%”, the other pointed to “go to war”. An old car labeled “Elon” skidded towards the latter.
#Musk #claims #Apple #threatened #pull #Twitter #app #store