Following the events in Charlottesville, it seems that Apple has decided to take a stand and according to a report from BuzzFeed News, the Cupertino company has pulled support for Apple Pay from hate websites, such as websites belonging to white nationalists and hate groups who might be selling paraphernalia on their websites.However this move shouldn’t be too surprising. While Apple did not comment on the removal of support, a company spokesperson did point BuzzFeed News towards Apple’s guidelines for using Apple Pay, which basically forbids the integration of Apple Pay into websites that “promotes hate, violence, or intolerance based on race, age, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation.”
Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has also publicly spoken about the events on Twitter where he wrote, “We’ve seen the terror of white supremacy & racist violence before,” Cook wrote. “It’s a moral issue – an affront to America. We must all stand against it.” Cook also posted a separate tweet condemning the violence at Charlottesville, “Heartbreaking scenes in #Charlottesville. Violence and racism have no place in America.”
Apple isn’t alone in their removal of support for services as other payment providers, such as PayPal, have said that they are working towards blocking “sites that accept payments or raise funds to promote hate, violence and intolerance.”