Elon Musk claims Apple has ‘threatened to withhold’ Twitter from its app store

Elon Musk on Monday claimed that Apple has “threatened” to drag Twitter from its iOS app retailer, a transfer that could possibly be devastating to the corporate Musk simply acquired for US$44 billion.

“Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why,” Musk mentioned in considered one of a number of tweets Monday taking intention at Apple and its CEO for alleged strikes that might undermine Twitter’s business.

In one other tweet, Musk claimed that Apple has largely stopped promoting on Twitter. “Do they hate free speech in America,” he mentioned, in an obvious reference to his oft-stated need to bolster his thought of free speech on the platform. “What’s going on here [Apple CEO Tim Cook]?” Musk added in a follow-up tweet. He additionally criticized Apple’s dimension, claimed it engages in “censorship,” and known as out the 30% transaction price Apple prices massive app builders to be listed in its app retailer.

The tweetstorm highlights the tenuous relationship between Musk and Apple, which together with Google serves as the main gatekeepers for cellular functions. Long earlier than taking up Twitter, the Tesla CEO mentioned that when the automobile firm was struggling, he thought-about promoting the corporate to Apple, however that Cook refused to take a gathering with him.

Removal from Apple’s app retailer, or that of Google, could be detrimental to Twitter’s business, which is already struggling with a lack of advertisers following Musk’s takeover and a rocky preliminary try at increasing its subscription business.

Apple didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Musk’s tweets. The firm has beforehand proven it is keen to take away apps from its app retailer over considerations about their capability to reasonable dangerous content material or in the event that they try to bypass the minimize Apple takes from in-app purchases and subscriptions.

In January 2021, Apple eliminated Parler, an app standard with conservatives, together with some members of the far proper, from its app retailer following the U.S. Capitol assault over considerations in regards to the platform’s capability to detect and reasonable hate speech and incitement. Parler was returned to Apple’s app retailer three months later after updating its content material moderation practices.

In its official app retailer evaluation tips, Apple lists varied security parameters that apps should adhere to in an effort to be included within the retailer, together with a capability to stop “content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, in exceptionally poor taste, or just plain creepy” equivalent to hate speech, pornography and terrorism. “If you’re looking to shock and offend people, the App Store isn’t the right place for your app,” the rules state.

Various civil society teams, researchers and different trade watchers have raised considerations about Twitter’s capability to successfully reasonable dangerous content material and preserve the platform’s security following widespread layoffs and mass worker exits on the firm. Musk has additionally claimed he needs to amplify “free speech” on the platform and has begun to revive some accounts that have been beforehand banned or suspended for repeatedly violating Twitter’s guidelines. Musk himself has shared a conspiracy idea and a number of other different controversial tweets since taking up as Twitter’s proprietor.

Musk, lengthy a prolific and antagonistic tweeter, has not let up in any respect since taking up the corporate. And what it could have misplaced in income, he has claimed it has made up for in engagement. Part of the technique seems to be relentlessly taking intention at enemies, both of him personally or of “free speech.”

In an interview with CBS earlier this month, Cook was requested whether or not there are any methods through which Twitter might change that will trigger Apple to take away it from the app retailer. “They say that they’re going to continue to moderate and so … I count on them to do that,” Cook responded. “Because I don’t think that anybody really wants hate speech on their platform. So I’m counting on them to continue to do that.”

In an op-ed printed within the New York Times final week, Twitter’s former head of belief and security, Yoel Roth, who left the corporate earlier this month, instructed that Twitter had already begun to obtain calls from app retailer operators following Musk’s takeover. Roth mentioned the corporate’s failure to stick to Google and Apple’s app retailer guidelines could possibly be “catastrophic.”

And final weekend, the top of Apple’s app retailer, Phil Schiller, deleted his Twitter account.

While the state of Apple and Twitter’s relationship is unclear, the iPhone maker was working Black Friday adverts on the platform as just lately as final Thursday, in line with posts considered by CNN.

Many corporations have pulled again on digital advert spending in current months because the financial system declined, and Twitter has possible at all times solely been a small portion of Apple’s advert finances. Apple’s impression on Twitter, nevertheless, could possibly be rather more important, together with if Musk succeeds in shifting its core business to being extra reliant on subscription income, and probably has to pay a 30% minimize to Apple.

In one tweet Monday, Musk requested his practically 120 million followers in the event that they know “Apple puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy through their App Store?” In one other tweet, he posted an image of a freeway exit: one lane headed towards “pay 30%,” the opposite pointed towards “go to war.” An previous automobile labelled “Elon” skidded towards the latter.