is a reporter who writes about tech, money, and human behavior. She joined The Verge in 2014 as science editor. Previously, she was a reporter at Bloomberg.
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Since X’s users started using Grok to undress women and children using deepfake images, I have been waiting for what I assumed would be inevitable: X getting booted from Apple’s and Google’s app stores. The fact that it hasn’t happened yet tells me something serious about Silicon Valley’s leadership: Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai are spineless cowards who are terrified of Elon Musk.
Here’s the relevant Apple App Store developer guideline: “Apps should not include content that is offensive, insensitive, upsetting, intended to disgust, in exceptionally poor taste, or just plain creepy.” Huh! How about that.
They sold their principles for power, and now they don’t even control their own companies
Here’s Google’s version of the same guideline, which is even clearer: “Apps that do not prohibit users from creating, uploading, or distributing content that facilitates the exploitation or abuse of children will be subject to immediate removal from Google Play. This includes all child sexual abuse materials.”
But booting X from these app stores for its flagrant violation of policy means upsetting Musk and the entire right-wing media ecosystem he controls through X — and with it, directly upsetting the clout-chasing content vampires who currently run the United States. Cook’s Apple has a massive dependency on China, and smartphones, computers, and chips are currently exempt from the tariffs on China. Cook can present Donald Trump with as many golden gifts as he wants, but those tariffs don’t have to stay that way.
Google’s Pichai is similarly weak. Trump has threatened Google numerous times over his placement in search results, and so far YouTube has managed to mostly avoid scrutiny over its content moderation policies because Pichai has been content to coddle Trump with promises that everything he does is the biggest thing in Google search history. Google also can’t risk upsetting Trump while AI policy remains deeply contested, and having an unhappy Musk influencing that policy is a nightmare of corruption.
This is the trap these men have gotten themselves into: They sold their principles for power, and now they don’t even control their own companies. Welcome to gangster tech regulation!
Apple’s lawyers heavily implied that a naked bananaman called Mr. Peely was somehow inappropriate for court
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