Elon Musk Confirms Apple Is Threatening Twitter’s Presence In Its App Store
“Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why”
Elon Musk had no idea what he was getting into when he bought Twitter. Upon seeing that suppression of anything that the left deemed wrongthink was harming not only free speech but potentially civilization itself, he had a noble idea to do something about it.
Now everyone from Joe “I am the Democratic Party” Biden to outraged lefties in Congress to hate-filled Hollyweirdos to stenographer left-wing activists to Big Tech have Musk in their sights.
The Washington Post‘s resident crybully recently penned a piece in which she urges Apple and Google to “Parler” Twitter, i.e. remove the app from their stores because seeing words from people she doesn’t agree with is a serious trigger and makes her cry. Or something.
And now Musk has confirmed that Apple is indeed threatening to remove Twitter from its app store (archive links here and here):
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Needless to say, people have thoughts.
This is exactly how Parler was destroyed for its refusal to obey the censorship orders of DC Democrats: Apple and Google removed the app from their stores, crippling Parler.
Threats of doing the same to Twitter have clearly been raised. It's an insane abuse of monopoly power. https://t.co/998ok6KJuh
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 28, 2022
Bring on the ePhone!
— SETH WEATHERS (@sethweathers) November 28, 2022
Time to get into the communications business @elonmusk
— AZcrypt🇺🇸 (@ZcryptA) November 28, 2022
Pretty silly considering my use of twitter represents 90% of my phone activity.
Longtime @Apple customers like me will bail on them and use browsers to access Twitter until a new phone can be found. It will be painful but doable.
— mindful_monk (@ThoughtleaderD) November 28, 2022
Not to mention a hidden onboard SQL database with location tracking info that was discovered by a researcher in UK a few years back (not to say it's still doing that). Haven't seen many Apple privacy ads lately either…3 letter agencies got their tongue?
— Peter I (@_frito_bandito_) November 28, 2022
It’s so sad what our country has become. The left vs.right culture war isn’t even stimulating or provocative anymore. It’s just increasingly bleak and isolating.
— Brandon Straka (@BrandonStraka) November 28, 2022
Corruption. Will be interesting to see emails and communications between @Apple and Biden administration.
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) November 28, 2022
Truth Social is allowed on their App Store, which means it isn't about President Trump or content moderation. It's about trying to bring you under control and make you submit to the lefts demands like the previous owners of Twitter did.
— Shem Horne (@Shem_Infinite) November 28, 2022
Apple would lose a certain portion of their market share if they did that. Many Apple customers like me would drop Apple to keep Twitter on our mobile devices.
Is Twitter safe on Google store? @elonmusk https://t.co/yJMord7GUq
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) November 28, 2022
Who else has Apple censored? https://t.co/lZculFIkAX
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Secret suppression of free speech by Apple. Customers were never told. What the hell is going on here?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Are you suggesting Apple would use its duopolist powers to hurt Tesla?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
As @Apple is a competitor of @ElonMusk's various businesses, it would seem any move by Apple to remove @Twitter from app store would raise a host of legal issues. Same goes for @Google.
— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) November 28, 2022
Apple Inc is fine using hordes of Chinese slave labor, but people in America who go online and say “only women can get pregnant”-
that’s just too far for Tim Cook
— Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) November 28, 2022
It looks like Musk is ready for war.
Did you know Apple puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy through their App Store? https://t.co/LGkPZ4EYcz
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
[FS Update: Musk tweeted and then deleted the following meme:]
🍿
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Like the man says, grab some popcorn.
[FS: updates with link and image from Musk’s tweet]
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Comments
This shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Musk. Apple and Google (as well as other internet services like AWS and Azure) have colluded to prevent social media applications like Parler and Gab from gaining traction. It is an illegal restraint of trade (afaik, ianal) but who is going to pursue them? Certainly not the corrupt DoJ.
This is why this is so beautiful. Who better to sue the richest Marxists in the world than the richest man in the world? I can imagine the look on Tim Cook’s face when the minion from Kang, Kodos, Nibbler PLC slaps a “show cause” order on his desk. Gee, they got used to pushing around shrimps like Parler, where that was never a problem.
And I’m more than sure that Tim Cook (Apple) and Pichai Sundararajan (Google) have made it perfectly legal for them to pull apps from their respective stores for whatever reason, or no reason at all, in the TOS the Developers affirmatively agree to before being allowed to distribute their App on the respective stores.
So even if the law firm of Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe send that “Show Cause” order they’ll simply get a reference to the TOS, if they get anything at all, and that will be it.
Agreements and Guidelines for Apple Developers
Google Play Developer Distribution Agreement
The question here is not whether they can but whether they should. Being able to legally do something doesn’t make it right (property taxes, asset forfeiture, etc., legal but deeply wrong). If they do pull Twitter from Apple (and Google), Musk is not going to shuffle off into the shadows. This is the richest man in the world, not some random Holocaust survivor grandmother arrested by the Biden-Garland corruptocrats. Elon is taking a stand that is singularly important to the future of this country and the security of our Constitution.
Not only is he the richest man in the world—he also has a photographic memory. A man with a photographic memory doesn’t forgive and forget.
His ultimate f.u. will be to make a Tesla cell phone. I’d buy it in a second.
As would I.
I have a fair amount of confidence that someone with the vision to commoditize space travel saw this on the probability scale and has a move ready. Starlink-based phone anyone?
Is not compelling Apple and Google to carry an app akin to “bake the cake!”?
I think that case can only be made if they refused to do so on religious grounds and were thus protected by the 1st Amendment. Also, Apple carries Parler, another free speech social media site that refuses to silence “wrongthink,” so what is their “you can’t make me bake this cake” stance?
The lawyers will leave a card, so Tim will have a number to call when Apple equipment stops working over Starlink…
Not even remotely. There’s no artistic content. Apple isn’t saying it endorses any particular views by carrying Twitter, though one can argue it is endorsing specific views by banning it.
Apple and Google are, in the age of Smartphones, simply common carriers for the people who want to communicate on the devices. Only now the communications are not limited to voices, but include text, commerce, information and amusement.
It’s not just a legal action — it’s PR. The last thing Apple, Google or the rest want is anybody really looking at the ToS.
Typical. Likely upset there is no more grooming.
There’s a whole lot of suppression and ‘nudging’ being applied by various big players to not quite control but more like heavily coerce individuals and smaller players. It’s been going on for about decade and a half in earnest and much more openly the past six years. End result is a very narrow choice of providers most of whom have an ideological ax to grind.
The issue is centralization of network services particularly in cloud computing/ hosting. Amazon web services swings a very large stick as does the apple store. Annoy the neo totalitarians who run either and you have a large problem. Some of the smaller alternative players are on board with fascism as well which leaves the power concentrated in the hands of ideologues.
As Musk peels back the onion at Twitter much more is revealed to the wider public about how deep the rot is and how many corporate entities have fallen into the sway of intolerant SJW ideologues, and how much coordination there is across the players and with the Federal and some State govts.
Tim Pool mentioned something like this a couple days ago (I don’t listen to his show but have heard some of his points).
He essentially said that honestly a lot of the virtue signaling businesses are NOT particularly woke or SJW, but they understand a simple truth.
Namely, that if they piss off the right, they might complain about it online or they might lose some money, but if they piss off the left, they will actually show up and physically destroy their businesses and physically harm them.
For a LOT of businesses its the simple calculation that they bow to the left because they will actually physically harm them and their businesses, and the right WILL NOT stop them from doing it.
Purely out of self-interest a lot of the businesses mouth the party line of the left.
Of course on the other hand Big Tech has been an absolute cesspit of woke wankery and censorship for years. THEY are the true believers, and the ones that have to be destroyed.
Well, I just did my small part and decided against purchase of an iMac 24 and switching from a 2018 Android to an iPhone during the current sales events. The number one rule of marketing is not to unnecessarily anger a significant percentage of your customers. I think Apple is being rather unwise here.
Last December I bought an iMac 27. Dumbest purchase I ever made: I could have bought 2 blazing hot PCs for the same price that would do better what my iMac struggles to do.
I have stopped recommending the iMac for all my customers, even the very old and very blind. Why waste money buying a new giant screen (and keyboard and mouse) when your old ones were never the problem? Buy the screen of your dreams, and drive it with an $800 Mac Mini (which doesn’t even come with a new KB or mouse unless you order one). Plus, Minis are still upgradeable and repairable, whereas you have to actually unglue and reglue the screens on today’s iMacs to do any upgrade or repair. Enough of that.
To Henry: “Plus, Minis are still upgradeable and repairable…”
No, they are not, I have three Minis here. The one I am using for most of my
bloviatingcommenting on LI is a 2014 model, where at best you can upgrade storage if you are really good with tools. Memory is permanent. I also have two of the new M1-processor Minis. AMAZING machines, but you can do NOTHING with them as far as I know.I am pleased with the M1s in every way as they satisfy my needs. They are, as you say, sold without accessories so I have what I want.
I only stepped away from Windows when, with Windows 10, it became overburdened with ad-ware, reminders, pop-ups, and other clutter, causing me to lose patience.
Linux? Please. Great for those still wearing propellor beanies and who like to tinker, tweak, poke, prod, and adjust. At my age, having a photo editor like Affinity means I can edit photos, as opposed to Gimp, which is FAR beyond my comprehension.
It has always been like that. I recall that the 64 bit version of Photoshop came out on PCs first, because Apple couldn’t handle it for some reason.
They haven’t always make great design choices. Their mice just suck. It he 80’s, they made a pill shaped mouse. Not so smart: when you grabbed it, more often than not, you did so in the wrong orientation, so when you went “up” on the mouse, it went sideways. A whole cottage industry formed to make normal mouse covers so you could use the things. They also only have one button. Is that for people with hooves? And that tiny pinhead scroll button they had (no idea if they still do), was a joke, and had no horizontal scroll function.
I have never had a “fruitphone,” and never will. If there is a Tesla phone, I am in!! How hard will it be to undercut Apple’s hyperinflated prices?
Griz: Much of this is accurate. The 2014 and M1 memory are soldered. But the Intel 2018-current models are upgradable by an independent repair shop, which is what I am, so that is my standard for my customers. SSDs on 2018s and later are also soldered, which takes me aback because I could swear I upgraded my own, but it must have been its predecessor. All I can say is that Minis of an age most likely to need upgrading are still upgradeable, but those days are expiring.
Dimsdale: The BB did in fact do horizontal scroll, just not in many apps. The BB’s problem was that it was a sponge for finger crud, and (unlike an old mouse ball) couldn’t be disassembled for cleaning. Rubbing it briskly on an alcohol cloth worked once or twice, then the fix required XActo knives and superglue.
I switched to Motorola. Just a couple days ago. Apple works for China and the Democratic party.
Motorola phones ARE China.
But, I will hand you this: the Motos work well, have an unbelievable charge life, and look good. The only thing I ever changed on mine was to silence that “Herroh, Motoh” voice with the accent of a Subic Bay bar girl.
I really think Apple would find itself with a tiger by the tail if they pulled Twitter.
Or a Grizzly Bear by the ears.
Or… an African Lion?
/sunglasses
Or a white African lion translator?
/sign language
Heh.
Can you sideload apps on an iPhone? If yes no problems. If no file an antitrust action.
Why do that instead of just using the browser? 🤔🤷🏻
The browser integration for stuff like real-time notifications is way poorer.
The point being that people are panicking over a non-issue. If they must use Twitter they can do it without the app. Yeah, kinda sucks but the myth that you need an “App” for everything is just that. A myth. If it’s on the internet then your smartphone browser will be able to open the website just fine. Most major website, if not all, provide their website in a smartphone friendly format.
The issue in this case of the APP store is one of gatekeeper based upon ideology. Apple can do what it wants with it’s platform right up to the point they become monopolistic. IMO we’ve passed that point.
If we hadn’t then Twitter itself would tell Apple to pound sand and relocate to a competing platform of APP downloads. There isn’t another competitor with anything close to the reach of Apple’s APP store.
It’s time to reorient our anti trust actions back towards a market share perspective and reintroduce meaningful competition through blocking acquisitions and break ups where required.
I don’t believe iPhone jailbreaking has been possible (short of intense hacker level skill that doesn’t scale to use by Joe Sixpack) for almost a decade. And sideloading requires jailbreaking.
I jail-broke my first iphone (actually the very first iphone) years ago. The software is avaialble on the Internet. It still is.
I doubt it’s of any more utility than a snowglobe. The hole Apple closed around the time of the iPhone 4s is the last one I know of that was exploitable without stuff like signal-injecting logic probes.
Musk is getting the very special Trump treatment
Time for the same billionaires and freedom loving people to join forces and finally give these real facists something they have nightmares about.
I agree.
Get behind buying or even crowdfunding any of the open-integration, open-design devices n software. There’s a few phones-as-products out there already.
Get behind declaring standards that are open. There’s a reason you can plug all your stereo gear into all your other gear; anything that uses power into any standard outlet. The “business through capture” crowd hates this. If they could “win” your business through better value, open integration wouldn’t be a problem. But that’s way harder than just locking you up — bribing the overlords for their help doing this.
Real nightmares…
One South American country — Ecuador, maybe, but don’t depend on my recall — declared that needing proprietary SW to access the public’s govt records made no sense. They mandated *open* formats for all govt docs.
Of course, if the point is locking in a rake-off the proles pay to your pals, this is the opposite of what you want. ?We’re mandating the ‘rona vaccine every year, now, right?
These morons are learning that Elon Musk is NOT Kanye West. Musk is highly intelligent, adaptable, has very good and very competent people working for him, and is NOT particularly reliant on other people to further his business interests, and is very good at quickly finding alternate routes of success.
They turned off Kanye’s Apple Pay and had Adidas kick him out and he literally can’t function. Try that with Musk and see how fast he goes scorched Earth.
I would hope that he could develop or acquire an alternate smart phone and Ap service as an alternative to apple.
The same would apply to servers where Amazon controls a large portion of the online market.
Competition is good for the soul and even better for a free society.
I’d like to see him pick up the old Windows Phone platform,
Now, before you tech types jump up and down on me, hear me out.
The screen tile icon system was VERY good, aesthetically pleasing, and easy to use. I had two of the Windows phones and both were sold as rocks, the OS was absolutely stable, and a snap to set up.
I also had a few of my office-mates see my screen and got a lot of “Gee, Bear! That looks nice! Let me see that!”
Too bad MS didn’t try to pursue it.
They did try. They remain incredibly incompetent at doing anything new.
Micro$oft creates and sustains captive markets (in stuff someone else has already figured out how to do.) What they try to to, what works, and what doesn’t is perfectly predictable with only that.
I don’t care how rich or prominent you are. If the Government decides to screw you, you have a problem. Look what has happened to Trump. Musk just must have some Top Secret government related space flight files laying around. However, Musk does have one advantage – sort of the Henry Ford of our time.
Yeah, not happy at all about the way things are going. Where is the GOP on this?
The Gawd Orfle Party
Getting ready to ‘reach across the aisle’ on ‘immigration reform’. I kid you not.
Rona Romney McDaniels is ON it: she promises to do for Elon what she did for the GOP in 2022.
Cowering.
sleeping, as usual!
I think of him more as a new “Tom Swift.”
Yes — also Heinlein’s “Delos D. Harriman.”
Yet the “squad”, continue to make antisemitic comments and defile Israel , yet they are “stars”
And Obama poses with notorious Jew-hater Louis Farrakhan:
https://www.ajc.com/news/local/could-this-long-lost-photo-have-derailed-obama-2008-campaign/jC8NKhQr6a72VjRYY9o0EM/
We either have effectively a duopoly between Apple and Google in phones, or each has a monopoly, thanks the Network Effect. Either make the two companies vulnerable under §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
There’s nothing more worthless than Democrat legislation that requires enforcement by Democrats.
Seems like if this happened, Twitter could just disable the @apple and @google (or whatever) accounts, as well as pop up warnings to whoever created their Twitter accounts with iCloud or gmail email addresses that their accounts are subject to deletion or whatever. See how dirty Apple/Google want to get in their battle.
You can sideload apps on any Android phone as easily as installing software on a Windows PC.
Apple has always had a walled garden, and there exist alternatives. There’s no actionable monopoly here.
Why cant twitter offer the app on their web site.
Short technical explanation: iPhones can download iPhone apps only from Apple’s official App Store. You can make an app as “available” as you want anywhere you want, but there’s no way to get your iPhone to install it as an app.
Well, from Musk’s tweet, he’s ready for war.
Fuzzy, I thought you were exaggerating, and then I read this:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1597404771618430976?s=61&t=8VLz429kzRjV7TexMrGZUg
I think I’m going to have to buy a Tesla phone.
I’m on board with Musk! Ready, Let’s roll!
Well, Elon isn’t going to buy Apple to bring it to heel. I guess he’ll have to make do with an army of lawyers.
Or his own comprehensive tech side industry that includes cloud, phone, app store, ebanking, etc. Maybe that alternative to leftist crap we’ve all been dreaming of is in the making? A girl can dream.
IDK, his latest bank statement might not support that or never pick a fight with someone who has more money than anyone except the House of Saud
The Ronald Raegan sollution to this was to regulate the cable companies in order to preserve freedom of speech against oligarchy. The earliest point we could do that is 2024 if we win but in the meantime using twitter does help Elon Musk and the algorithm is changing.
It also would help him not to feed the people he and you frankly know to be evil. Japanese twitter erupted; and frankly the things Japanese people are using twitter for are both amusing and like many art forms often intelligent.
Don’t worry, McConnell has promised his full loyalty in getting this straightened out for us. Rona Romney McDaniels has promised to use her awesome talent to get this straightened out. And Kevin McCarthy has promised to use his awesome courageousness to get this straightened out.
In other words, dont’ count on the GOP to get this straightened out.
Would you like to start at the top? Care to explain why when Tucker Carlson point blank warned Trump about this issue Trump instead of acting on it told Tucker they can’t do anything, never submitted any legislation on this issue, never acted on it but did have big tech oligarchs to the white house?
Care to explain why he asked big tech to start covid censorship at the start of the pandemic?
Now lets see DeSantis
DeSantis didn’t get perfect legislation but he did get a significant bill attacked big tech censorship through the Florida State House and he did so by careful negotiation and hard work not by insulting the state house speaker.
By the way I admire your brilliant strategy of trying to get people to vote Republican by informing them Republicans are worthless and implying its leadership isn’t an improvement over Democrats keep up the good work. Sarcasm off but you are better than that comment try to act like it.
The Reagan-years cable solution is technically obsolete. In those days, you had to provide service over cables, meaning it was economically ridiculous to have competing companies lay multiple privately-owned cabled networks in every town, so a monopoly had to be granted to one. That infrastructure model is meaningless now (cf. “the” phone company).
Big tech has monopoly power that dwarfs the cable companies and unlike the cable companies they are using it in a way that makes the 1st amendment a complete and utter joke.
The Raegan solution is not obsolete. Your ability to compete in commerce and the public square is not to be dependent on a series of oligarchs.
Stories like this demonstrate that the idea that big tech doesn’t need regulation to maintain a free country is at absolute best a terrible joke, and at worst what it actually is which is a sarcastic insult from the left who never tire of reminding us we are being ground to dust by corporations.
I know this is about Musk getting the Trump treatment but I found this article written by VDH, who of late has not been a Trump supporter, jumped on that DeSantis train he did, but he actually wrote a well thought out article about why President Trump has not been able to “let go” and people want him to “move on” aren’t really understanding WTF really happened and continues to happen to this imperfect warrior of ours, President Trump.
https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/27/was-trump-our-captain-queeg/
Think I found Rags in the comments (Sawdust…whatever)
The article is wistful but doesn’t change the facts that Trump is done.
He no longer has the political capital to win.
Years ago Cable TV companies were told they must carry local TV stations. The Government needs to do the same with apps from the Google and Apple stores.
Again, this was to soften the harm of the requirement that cable companies HAD to be granted PROTECTED local monopolies by local governments, for technological reasons. The limitation no longer applies.
Musk should sue Apple for violations of the anti trust laws and fofr engaging in censorship -when Apple drops an app such as Twitter it can be argued that the same is an unconstitutional prior restraint on free speech
People have gotten creamed for decades by gatekeepers and platforms in IT. It’s a necessary part of business planning in the Micro$oft ecosystem, since forever. If you do well, you’ve done their market research for them. (Amazon’s shenanigans with this same approach via “Amazon Basics” is nothing new.) Be best positioned for them to buy once they’ve figured out that your thing is a thing. Then sell and walk away.
You knew app verification was control and collusion not safety as soon as it was app store access vs. a verified badge.
Bongino learned his lesson from Parlor and wont use Amazon servers again. When Elon puts out a Tesla phone I’m all in.
BTW: did you know welfare gets 50% off Amazon Prime?
Took me a while to parse this; I assume you’re talking about the annual fee, not the item pricing.
We know why, Apple wants editorial control over Twitter content.