On November 28 (local time), billionaire and Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk lashed out at Apple for the App Store policies and tax rules. Musk accused the iPhone maker of blocking ads on Twitter without specifying why. Furthermore, Musk added that the company was pressuring Twitter over demands related to content moderation. He asked Apple if the company was against “free speech” in America. He tagged Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, and asked what was going on.
The reasons behind the alleged threats to Twitter by Apple to “withhold” from the App Store are unclear. Musk said, “Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why.”
However, Musk’s tweets indicate that the social media platform’s new moderation policy leaning towards “safeguarding free speech” could be the reason behind it. Musk also ran a poll asking Twitter users if Apple should publish all censorship actions it has taken that affect its customers.
In Another tweet, Musk said the “free speech suppression” that happened on Twitter should be published on Twitter itself as the public deserves to know what had happened.
Furthermore, there is no official statement from Apple stating why Apple stopped ads on Twitter. In a report, Reuters pointed out that between November 10 to November 16, Apple had spent $131,600 on Twitter ads. However, it was close to doubling between October 16 and October 20 at $220,800, a week before Musk closed the deal with Twitter at $44 billion and made it private.
This is not the first time Apple has removed a social media platform from App Store. Earlier, Parler, an alternative to Twitter, was removed from Apple’s App Store over content moderation following the US Capitol riots in January 2021. Later, in May 2021, the app was restored to App Store after Parler updated the content moderation policies. Similarly, another app Lbry was asked by Apple to “filter some search terms”.
When Musk asked Lbry about the terms they were referring to, it said, “Apple disallowed almost anything related to Covid, especially vaccines or human origins of the virus. We had to build a list of over 20 terms to not show results for, only on Apple devices. Apple also later rejected us because users included Pepe images in videos.” Musk expressed his shock and said, “Secret suppression of free speech by Apple. Customers were never told. What the hell is going on here?”
Musk expressed his dismay over the fee charged by Apple on in-app purchases, which currently stands at 30 per cent. Twitter is working on a worldwide rollout of Twitter subscriptions at $8. Apple would take a 30 per cent cut from all such subscriptions every month. In a tweet, Musk said, “Did you know Apple puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy through their App Store.”
In a now-deleted tweet, Musk hinted that he would go to war with Apple rather than pay them the hefty fee.