Twitter Will No Longer Be Available On iPhone?
It didn’t take long for Elon Musk’s newly purchased Twitter to start ruffling some feathers over at the headquarters of mobile industry titan Apple. Elon took to his Twitter account yesterday to fire off a number of pointed tweets to his 120 million followers on the platform.
One asked followers if they were aware that Apple puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy through their app store. CNN Business reports, “The company has previously shown it’s willing to remove apps from its app store over concerns about their ability to moderate harmful content or if they attempt to circumvent the cut Apple takes from in-app purchases and subscriptions.”
In another tweet, he posted a picture of a highway exit and one lane is labeled “pay 30%” and the other is labeled “go to war” with an old car labeled Elon skidding towards the go to war lane and this type of outburst could lead to the removal of the Twitter app from being able to be accessed via Apple’s iPhones.
And finally, Elon Musk mentioned that Apple was even threatening to take Twitter out of the App Store permanently, though said that the company was unaware of the reason behind the potential move.
The direct attack of Apple has people concerned that Elon may get Twitter removed from the app store permanently which would be a crushing blow to his brand-new investment. In the mobile app space, there are only two major competitors: Apple and Google with their respective app store platforms.
Apple has removed apps before that it deemed as not following its official app store review guidelines. One of those guidelines is that app owners need to be able to moderate the content of their platforms and take acceptable actions on the accounts that do not adhere to various safety procedures.
For example, according to CNN Business, “In January 2021, Apple removed Parler, an app popular with conservatives, including some members of the far right, from its app store following the US Capitol attack over concerns about the platform’s ability to detect and moderate hate speech and incitement. Parler was returned to Apple’s app store three months later after updating its content moderation practices.”
Many leaders in civil society groups, researchers, and other industry experts have massive concerns about Twitter’s ability to effectively screen for these types of hate-motivated tweets.
With the number of layoffs combined with the rapid departures of many existing staff members, Twitter is shorthanded at the worst possible time in its history. It remains to be seen if Musk will even put a real effort into the moderation of the platform. He has touted on numerous occasions that one of his objectives is to champion freedom of speech and have as few restrictions as applied to users of the social media platform.
Apple has not commented specifically about Elon’s Monday tweet attack on their app revenue policy. However, in an interview with CBS earlier this month Apple CEO Tim Cook was asked if there were any ways in which Twitter could change that would cause Apple to remove it from the app store.
CNN Business reported his response: “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 wants hate speech on their platform. So I’m counting on them to continue to do that.”
Elon Musk has long been known as a prolific and antagonistic tweeter on the platform, which is one of the reasons he has built up a massive following. We will see if he tones it down since he now is financially invested in the company’s success or if will he use his seat at the head of the Twitter executive table to further push the envelope and buttons of his rivals.
It could be that his Monday morning tweets will go down as the first shots in a prolonged battle between these two corporate heavyweights, but only time will tell.
