— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022 It follows a string of incidents involving Twitter moderation and other things that raised the question of whether Apple and Google would have the power to remove Twitter from their app stores. The report comes after far more subdued indications of escalating conflict between Musk-owned Twitter and Apple. Musk called the in-app purchase fee charged by Apple’s App Store a “hidden 30% tax” online. Phil Schiller, the head of Apple’s App Store, also deactivated his Twitter account after Musk took control of it, not long after Donald Trump‘s account had been restored. The commotion surrounding blue verified badges being made available to everyone for $8/month and subsequently closed has recently generated outrage on Twitter. In that window, numerous brands and famous persons were impersonated, including Nintendo, Lebron James, Tesla, Eli Lilly, and many more. Possible FTC breaches and Musk’s intention to grant all suspended accounts universal amnesty if they haven’t breached the law or sent spam are other facets of the situation. Twitter has long pushed beyond the bounds of Apple’s App Store regulation, which has succeeded in getting sites like Discord, Tumblr, and others to either suppress or completely ban potentially offending content. One of the only major platforms that still permits explicit content on its app is Twitter. If Musk’s claim is true, “withhold” may refer to either a temporary rejection of an update to the Twitter app or a more serious threat to remove Twitter from the iOS App Store, both of which would be disastrous for Twitter.
