Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have come under fire the past few years for apparently not doing much to curb hate speech from making their rounds. There have been instances where it took these platforms longer than they should to remove such content, and Apple wants you to know that they do not stand for it.The company’s CEO Tim Cook recently received a “Courage Against Hate” award from the Anti-Defamation League, and during his acceptance speech, he reiterated how Apple’s platforms had “no place” for hate to exist on them. According to Cook, “We only have one message for those who seek to push hate, division and violence: You have no place on our platforms. You have no home here.”
Earlier this year, Apple had pulled podcasts belonging to far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from its iTunes and Podcast app. It seemed that Apple was the first to make the move and it looked like it had a domino effect on the rest of the industry, where other companies such as YouTube, Spotify, Facebook, and Twitter followed suit by banning him from their platform and services.
Cook also added, “We believe the future should belong to those who use technology to build a better, more inclusive, and more hopeful world. I believe the most sacred thing that each of us is given is our judgment, our morality, our own innate desire to separate right from wrong. Choosing to set that responsibility aside in a moment of trial is a sin.”