It seems pretty clear that following his takeover of Twitter, Elon Musk doesn’t want other companies or people dictating to him exactly how he should run his newly acquired platform. Mandating a fresh start and the advocacy of ‘free speech’, this has already got his tenure off to a pretty rocky start with many companies either expressing their concern over this or, in more terser situations, withdrawing their advertising from the social media platform entirely.
It seems, however, that, like it or not, this is a hill that Elon Musk is willing to die on. – And if you needed any proof of this you only need to look at his Twitter feed over the weekend where he effectively said that if Apple or Google remove Twitter from their respective app stores, he’ll just create and launch a competing smartphone. Something which he could undoubtedly do!
In something that seemingly reflects an escalation of these tensions, however, Elon Musk has upped the ante by openly accusing Apple of hating free speech!
What’s going on here @tim_cook?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Elon Musk – ‘Does Apple Hate Free Speech?’
As part of a new series of Twitter posts, Elon Musk has not only confirmed that Apple has withdrawn the majority of its advertising from the social media platform, but more so, he has (again) confirmed that they have threatened to completely remove it from their App Store. In other words, Apple is allegedly threatening Elon Musk that if he doesn’t back down on his ‘free speech’ policy, they will effectively ban/remove Twitter from their iPhones.
Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Now, of course, Apple can do this. With that being said though, I daresay that even despite the masses of people somewhat ironically taking to Twitter to complain about Elon Musk, they wouldn’t like it if they could no longer do so on their iPhones.
And, of course, Elon Musk is only too happy to point out what has been one of the most contentious subjects regarding the Apple App Store. Namely, how much of a cut they take from transactions!
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
What Happens Now?
I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I don’t really have a problem with Elon Musk owning Twitter. Despite being founded on the principles of ‘free speech’, Twitter long abandoned these many years ago to make the platform more attractive to advertising partners. In addition, their history of ‘banning’ certain people on the platform has led to many allegations of clear political bias (whether you believe this or not is up to you).
Generally speaking, I am, like Elon Musk, an advocate of free speech. If people make stupid remarks, I believe they should be out in the open for everyone to see rather than being sent underground to dark and disturbing corners of the internet where they’ll likely garner the attention of people we should be significantly more worried about.
Another problem, of course, is that while hate speech is clearly not a thing that should be encouraged, who decides what constitutes this? It’s an incredibly vague term with practically each and every of the 7 billion people on this planet likely having a different personal definition.
More than anything though, I mostly don’t understand why people who apparently dislike Elon Musk as the new Twitter owner don’t simply shut their account down to make a point rather than spending a lot of their time apparently criticising him with posts akin to claiming that the social media sky is falling. By staying on Twitter, I don’t think you’re really doing much to drive Elon out.
Regardless of your opinion though, and even if you don’t care, should Elon Musk decide to directly challenge Apple, you’re going to want to grab your popcorn because this should be more than a little entertaining for the bystander!
What do you think though? – Let us know in the comments!
