Because money. And the laws are useless against them.
this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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I've been an Apple user since the 80s, I used to be penpals with their CFO Ellen Hancock. Would get care packages from their PR team full of promo items. Exchanged emails with Wozniak and Jobs. I was deeply obsessed.
Obviously things have drifted away from the core "underdog" vibe that Apple exemplified for so long, as their popularity and device adoption surged, they've been less of the Apple I knew.
But Cook's behavior this year has me realizing I've bought my last Apple device. Bring on Linux in every form.
I know I don't matter at all, but it would have taken epic amounts of bullshit to make me sour on them, and here we are.
Your individual change is a drop in the ocean but everyone making that change is a tidal wave. I have very recently moved to linux after almost 30 years using windows. It is an incredible set of OSs with brilliant support from a fantastic community and it keeps getting better.
We need to make the change and encourage others too.
You're not alone. Used to be the biggest Apple fan, worked there for nearly ten years until 2023.
Last year I made the cut, the new PC I bought was custom built and is running Linux. My MacBook Air is running Asahi Fedora Remix primarily and the iPhone was sold on. Disconnecting from iCloud was a pain, getting pictures off of their system took me three months but it was worth it. Self hosting my stuff now and 2026 is the year to switch my family and friends over as well.
I recently saw a video about what changed and it’s very clear that it is almost entirely Tim Cook’s fault. He’s a rotten snake who no one ever seemed to really like and who was constantly wrong about nearly everything and yet was left in charge and, with zero surprise whatsoever, immediately and consistently fucked it all up.
He was handed a roadmap to making money without sacrificing quality or much integrity(corporations seem hell-bent on making sure they always suck a little bit at the very least) and he threw it away to be a little bitch instead.
Just finishing off setting up ElementaryOS on my wife's early 2015 MacBook Air. It's based on Ubuntu LTS, but with a custom theme to make it macOS-esque. Seems pretty good so far, but time will tell if she enjoys using it.
Post deepfake porn of them and their wives or husbands on X.
That’s…actually a pretty good idea.
More views, more ads. Go ahead make them richer.
It appears to demonstrate that it's very much profit over principles and values.
Sometimes I have the impression X is doing everything to be removed to the App Store so Musk can sue and get rid of the guidelines. And as we can see here we can do even CSAM on his social network and no one do anything, this should be a matter of law, not a private company like Google or Apple.
I mean Grok is literally being used to make CSAM so it should not only be taken down but the law should get involved in any reasonable country.
how many times do we have to say it
the law is optional for corporations and the rich
the law is for oppressing the poor and justifying it
The thing is though… is it actually CSM according to the law if there is no real child involved along the way? At least some countries might need a law change first before tackling this.
Edit: I checked the local law where I’m located and it’s “images or videos depicting a minor during a sexual act”. I’d argue these AI generated images aren’t of minors because they don’t exist. We probably need new laws first unless it’s provable that the images represent a specific real life minor.
The thing is though… is it actually CSM according to the law if there is no real child involved along the way?
Legally, yes. The law in the UK also includes images of children that are drawn or computer generated.
Good. I also read a bit more into it and while I’m not located in the UK apparently there is a specific extension to the law that also includes drawings and “collage” type edits. It doesn’t mention AI yet but surely this should count.
RIP my search history. But I’m glad we don’t need to wait for the law to catch up (in some places). Now all we have to do is scream from the rooftops that the laws need to be applied. Or even better: sue someone.
Because they are indeed cowards.
"Coward" implies that they want to do good, but are too scared to do so. There's no reason to think that, and indeed we shouldn't. They want money and Elon makes them money; that's all there is to it. If ethics mattered to them at all, they wouldn't have been able to climb to the position of CEO of a major corporation in the first place.
Fuck Tim Apple and Sundar Google.
They pulled Tumblr over cartoon porn, but using AI to sexually abuse actual women and children is all good, apparently.
It's because they fear what Musk might do.
Twitter should be banned for making CSAM.
They are not cowards, they don't give a single shit about it. There isn't enough backlash to effect Google so Google doesn't care. That is how corporations deal with every subject. They don't treat child porn differently becuase it's one of the more henious offenses; it's simply another rule broken and it is delt woth the same way as anyother broken law or rule: ignore it or throw money at it and admit no wrong doing.
It’s the opposite. They are cowards. Any move to do the right thing makes you a target for oh dear leader (who is also a pedophile). So they ignore it because it’s more profitable to avoid falling out with the administration. The only value a corporation has is greed.
this is actually a pretty wild headline to appear on the verge frontpage
good on them
I see a lot of people hate The Verge and I don’t understand why. Is it perfect? No. But, I think they have a pretty solid ethics policy and they call out bullshit.
I like 404 better but Verge is by no means bad.
Maybe there was an issue with them that I don’t know about? Idk!
An eon ago they made a PC building guide that was riddled with mistakes and had to pull it down again and I think that's still where most of that comes from.
IIRC the initial response to extremely valid criticism of the video was also terrible, and they threw the video host under the bus for a rushed video that should've never been produced under the circumstances it was (granted he was part of the terrible response to criticism)
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If you have an Apple account take a min to report it.
Thanks, this is very helpful!
It’s only allowing me report apps I’ve installed so I’m wondering if I should very briefly install the app to allow that. I’m generally cautions of allowing dodgy apps on my devices.
I wouldn't even download apps you don't feel comfortable with because the permissions they are granted are agreed-upon at the time of download and you are also boosting the download and usage metrics simply by installing it and opening it once.
It's also extremely unlikely that an application such as X could ever be reported enough to have anything happen. I'm sure it's on a manually approved list
Yes, I feel the same way you do. I really don't want to add to the download metrics. I'm making an exception this time. Some good journalists, for example Richard Chambers (Ireland), have downloaded it to test and debunk claims made by Musk about safeguards. I think their contribution was a net positive. So there are cases where it's worth doing.
I did not need to open the app once. Just downloading it allowed me to complain to apple using the link above. I feel when it comes to a CSAM factory such as this (possibly even trained on CSAM material), and with EU headquarters in my country (Ireland), I have to report it so Apple cannot claim ignorance. Who knows, maybe a whistleblower will someday tell us how many reports there were. Unfortunately our leaders are not leading on this issue, so the social contract is broken and we should all (IMO) do much more than posting on social media. My personal discomfort is less important.
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Everyone watched as Tim Apple bowed and kissed the ring. 'Coward' was already his namesake.
More proof that rules and guidelines only apply to those without power or privilege.
Because billionaires like to stick together because they think that they're better than all of us combined.
Money and mutually assured destruction (blackmail-able info).
Not just blackmail, if either had the balls to ban twitter I don't imagine the large orange fascist would keep his mouth shut and not retaliate. So it's also extortion!
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Because billionaires like these two, and the corporations that they run, believe they’re largely not accountable to the law nor cultural pressure. They exist in a cloud of privilege that never holds them to account for truth, justice nor anyone’s wellbeing as long as the investors get paid. They are sociopaths.
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But Xitter disabled image gen now.
Sure, yes, with any niche app, they would've pulled it from the store and never allowed it again.
Do you need a back brace to stand up straight, buddy? Because at this point, I am certain you haven’t got a single vertebra.
Just want to make sure this line gets the attention it deserves.
Why won't Apple and Google pull it?
Google will pull it as soon as Apple does, they're a follower not a leader.
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hopefully more leftists/progressives will wake up about how trusting these companies with "censorship" and having closed source proprietary tech/platforms so entangled in our lives is a bad thing. Most in my experience just complain about how we need to tax them without really thinking about how we can disentangle them from our lives. The past 20 years have been this weird bubble where the largest creators of capital (silicon valley) were not explicitly sided with the auth right wing. People have gotten too use to this especially with personal data and just expecting the state to save them.
I like to think this will cause open source solutions and federated ecosystems to become more popular. Maybe i'm a doomer but we will just get more tiktoks about trump is bad and "late stage capitalism". People I think just will never sacrifice convenience in life, its why authoritarianism seems to always win.
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