SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) – Twitter owner Elon Musk on Monday opened fire against Apple over its tighter controls on what apps are allowed on the App Store, saying the iPhone maker was using its recently acquired social media platform Threatened to oust the platform.
Musk also joined the chorus crying foul over the 30 percent fee that Apple collects on transactions through its App Store — the sole gateway to applications on its billion-plus mobile devices.
A series of tweets by Musk included a meme of a car with his first name on it, spinning on a highway off-ramp labeled “Go to War” instead of proceeding towards the “30% payment”.
The billionaire CEO also tweeted that Apple “threatened to withdraw Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why.”
Apple did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.
Both Apple and Google require any social networking service on their App Stores to have effective systems for moderating harmful or abusive content.
But since taking over Twitter last month, Musk has cut nearly half of Twitter’s workforce, with many employees tasked with fighting disinformation, while an unknown number of others have left voluntarily.
He has also restored previously banned accounts, including those of former US President Donald Trump.
Screen capture of the Twitter application on the Apple App Store on November 29, 2022. (App Store. Used in accordance with section 27A of the Copyright Law)
Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and security who left after Musk took over, wrote in a New York Times op-ed that “the failure of Apple and Google to follow the guidelines would be catastrophic,” and his Risk reserves of “removal” from the app.
Describing himself as a “free speech absolutist”, Musk believes all content permitted by law should be allowed on Twitter, and described his actions on Monday as “a revolution against online censorship in America”. described.
He also tweeted that he planned to publish “Twitter files on free speech suppression”, but without specifying what data he had to share with the public.
Although Musk says Twitter is seeing record-high engagement with him, his approach has stunned the company’s main moneymaker — advertisers.
In recent weeks, half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers have announced they are suspending or otherwise “stopped advertising on Twitter,” an analysis by the nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters found. .
Musk alleged on Monday that Apple has also “mostly stopped advertising on Twitter.”
“Do they hate free speech in America?” he asked before replying to a tweet tagging Apple CEO Tim Cook.
In the first three months of 2022, Apple was the top advertiser on Twitter, spending $48 million on ads, more than 4% of the social media platform’s revenue, according to a Washington Post report.
Example: People shop at an Apple Store in Beijing on September 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)
Sarah Roberts, an information studies specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, told AFP that “What Musk didn’t understand was that Twitter itself was a brand, it had cachet.”
He said, ‘Now companies do not even want to be associated with it. It is not even that they are concerned about the content. Twitter is a tainted brand, a brand that non grata companies don’t want to be associated with,” he said.
Tarnished Tesla?
Musk also called the charge Apple charges on transactions through its App Store a “secret 30% tax” on Monday.
He shared a video released last year by Fortnite maker Epic Games that portrayed Apple as an oppressor in a mockumentary spin on a famous “1984” ad for Macintosh computers.
Apple has clashed in court with Epic, which has sought to break Apple’s grip on the App Store, accusing the iPhone maker of operating a monopoly in its store for digital goods or services.
A federal judge last year ordered Apple to loosen controls on its App Store payment options, but said Epic had failed to prove that antitrust violations had occurred.
Along with Musk’s controversial moves, he will need to sell more Tesla shares to keep the social media platform afloat, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.
“The new Musk vs. Apple battle is not what investors want to see,” Ives said in a tweet.
“(Wall) Street wants less drama, not more because this Twitter situation is the gift that keeps on giving for Tesla bears with each day being a new chapter.”
