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On Monday, in a sequence of tweets, Musk claimed Apple has “principally stopped” its promoting on Twitter. That’s dangerous information, as Apple’s $48 million price of advert spending accounted for greater than 4% of Twitter’s income for the primary quarter of this yr, the Washington Publish reported.
“Do they hate free speech in America,” Musk wrote. In a separate tweet, he asked Apple’s CEO, “what’s happening right here @tim_cook?”
Twitter has skilled an advertiser exodus since Musk took over final month, and Apple isn’t the one advertiser to move for the exit. Different main firms together with Volkswagen, Pfizer, and Normal Mills have paused their advert spending. And to not point out that since his takeover, Twitter’s misplaced half of its prime 100 advertisers, in accordance with a report from Media Issues. Musk has previously blamed the “large drop in income” on activist teams pressuring advertisers.
However for all of Musk’s combating phrases about Apple pulling its Twitter adverts, there’s a a lot larger downside looming over the connection between each firms.
Musk tweeted on Monday that Apple has “threatened to withhold” Twitter from its App Retailer. Apple has not confirmed this, however there was widespread hypothesis that such a call could be associated to Musk’s strikes to intestine Twitter’s content material moderation crew, one thing that human rights teams have warned dangers making the platform get together to harassment and abuse.
Apple is a significant arbiter of content material on the web by the best way it decides which apps can be found to iPhone customers. A number of years in the past, Apple was reportedly contemplating kicking Uber off the App Retailer for breaking Apple’s guidelines. If that occurred, it will have successfully destroyed the corporate—individuals wouldn’t have the ability to name for an Uber on their iPhones.
Twitter’s former head of belief and security, Yoel Roth, who give up quickly after Musk took over, wrote an op-ed for the New York Instances outlining what might occur at a post-Musk takeover of Twitter, significantly when it comes to Musk’s self-proclaimed devotion to “free speech.” Together with advertisers and regulators, Roth particularly cited Google and Apple as highly effective forces that Twitter should cope with when it comes to the way it handles its content material moderation.
“Failure to stick to Apple’s and Google’s pointers could be catastrophic, risking Twitter’s expulsion from their app shops and making it tougher for billions of potential customers to get Twitter’s providers,” Roth wrote. “This offers Apple and Google huge energy to form the choices Twitter makes.”
On Tuesday, in response to investor David Sacks calling Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon “gatekeepers,” Musk tweeted that “it’s an actual downside.”
“Apple and Google successfully management entry to a lot of the Web through their app shops,” he mentioned.
Twitter didn’t instantly reply to Fortune’s request for remark. Apple didn’t instantly reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
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