Elon Musk ‘resolves’ Apple row over ‘removal of Twitter from iPhone store’ - The Guardian

Elon Musk said helium had “resolved” a misunderstanding with Apple implicit his assertion that Twitter was being threatened with removal from the iPhone maker’s app store.

Twitter’s caller proprietor tweeted connected Wednesday that helium had a “good conversation” with Apple CEO Tim Cook and that Apple had “never considered” removing the societal media level from its app store.

On Monday, Musk had utilized his Twitter relationship to assertion that Apple had broached removing Twitter for unspecified reasons. The Tesla CEO past indicated it was related to moderation standards astatine Twitter, portion helium launched a bid of tweets criticising Apple including its argumentation of taking a chopped of up to 30% from app sales.

Musk’s Monday tweet flurry included a connection tagging Tim Cook successful which helium asked “what’s going connected here”. A gathering betwixt Musk and Cook appears to person followed the outburst. A fewer hours earlier sending the “misunderstanding” tweet connected Wednesday, Musk posted a abbreviated clip of a pond which helium said was astatine Apple’s HQ, thanking Tim Cook for “taking maine around”.

Musk’s archetypal assertion that Apple was threatening to region Twitter from its app store indicated a deepening of the platform’s fiscal problems. The Tesla CEO has already admitted that Twitter has suffered a “massive driblet successful revenue” owed to advertisers pausing their spending connected the platform, reflecting concerns of a surge of inappropriate contented connected the level aft Musk’s takeover.

However, being sanctioned by 1 of Twitter’s cardinal app distributors – alongside Google’s Play store – would chopped disconnected the level from imaginable customers. Last month, Twitter’s erstwhile caput of spot and safety, Yoel Roth, described specified a script arsenic “catastrophic”. Apple’s app store guidelines authorities that the institution volition not judge apps that nutrient contented oregon behaviour that “we judge is implicit the line”. Musk precocious posted an interior presumption that showed Twitter’s regular idiosyncratic numbers climbing supra 250m, compared with conscionable nether 238m successful the summer.

Musk, a self-described “free code absolutist”, has reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter relationship and declared an amnesty for permanently suspended accounts. It besides emerged this week that Twitter will nary longer enforce its argumentation against Covid-19 misinformation.

Musk received a shot crossed the bows from the European Union implicit contented moderation connected Wednesday erstwhile the European Commission, the EU’s enforcement arm, warned Twitter indispensable “significantly increase” efforts to comply with caller online authorities covering issues including hatred code and disinformation.

The involution implicit the Digital Services Act (DSA) by Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for the interior market, signalled Twitter was astatine hazard of a important good oregon adjacent a ban, which are among the punishments for breaches of the act.

However, Breton said a video telephone with Musk astir the DSA was “constructive” and that the Tesla CEO had “committed to comply” with the act.