Apple CEO Tim Cook
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Apple removed Parler, a popular application among Trump supporters, from its iPhone App Store on Saturday.
Apple said pro-Trump social media posts related to the US Capitol riot last week included calls for violence, which violates Apple’s rules against objectionable content.
“We have always supported a variety of views represented on the App Store, but there is no place on our platform for threats of violence and illegal activities,” an Apple representative said in a statement. “Parler has not taken adequate measures to deal with the proliferation of these threats to people’s security. We have suspended Parler from the App Store until they resolve these problems.”
Google removed Parler from its Android app store, Google Play, on Friday.
The removal of the app comes in the wake of the violence on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters on Wednesday, which left five dead. Violence has renewed calls for social media and technology companies to moderate their platforms more closely, especially when it comes to calls to incite violence.
Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump’s personal account on Friday because it appeared that Trump’s latest tweets were inciting violence, while Facebook prevented Trump from posting during his inauguration later this month.
Parler was launched in 2018 and emerged earlier this year as a pro-Trump alternative to Twitter with less content moderation. “We are a city square, an open, uncensored square,” said Parler CEO John Matze in June. “If you can speak on the streets of New York, you can speak at Parler.”
Parler remains accessible via a web browser, which Apple previously pointed out as a way to reach iPhone users without requiring Apple’s approval.
Apple has not faced the same content moderation challenges as companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It does not operate many platforms where users post or exchange opinions.
But Apple has control over its App Store, which is the only way to install apps on an iPhone. Apple regularly removes apps for violating its long-standing guidelines and has already banned apps popular with right-wing users, including the Infowars app in 2018 and, before that, Qdrops, an app related to the Qanon conspiracy theory.
In a message sent to Parler on Saturday, Apple said the social media app was failing to moderate and remove content that encourages illegal activity, citing two Apple guidelines, one that prohibits objectionable content and one that requires apps with content generated by user to filter out potentially harmful posts.
“Parler has not maintained its commitment to moderate and remove harmful or dangerous content that encourages violence and illegal activity, and is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines,” according to Apple’s message.
An earlier Apple message sent on Friday, reported by Buzzfeed, and posted in part by CEO Parler on his account, quoted a tweet from activist group Sleeping Giants with screenshots of the Parler app, including one in which a user called their followers to attend the inauguration “carrying our weapons”. Apple gave Parler 24 hours to add content moderation to its application or Apple would remove it.
Parler did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday. “Anyone who buys an Apple phone is apparently a user. Apparently, they know what’s best for you, telling you what apps you can and can’t use,” said Matze, its CEO, in a post on Parler.