Marco ArmentOct 3, 2025

Glad to see Apple's leaders showing so much courage.

I'm sure their founders, and the historical heroes they love to quote on their homepage on important dates, would've been so proud of the courage and values they practice today.

https://www.theverge.com/news/791170/iceblock-app-store-removed-by-apple

Apple pulls ICEBlock from the App Store

Apple pulled the ICEBlock app from the iOS App Store, with AG Pam Bondi claiming it was at the DOJ’s request.

The Verge
Show threadMarco ArmentOct 3, 2025

Are any of you still thinking Tim Cook is just doing what he "needs" to do, throwing his own reputation under the bus as a selfless act to protect a larger social well-being, rather than literally just *supporting* the Trump regime because the political favors he negotiates help his company make even more money?

Can we all finally see it now?

Would anyone bend over backwards so far to try to excuse this behavior for anyone else, or any other company, performing the same actions that Cook has?

Show threadMustapha HamouiOct 4, 2025
@marcoarment for argument’s sake if some right-winger pro-life nut wrote an app that doxxes all women ordering abortion pills and doctors facilitating abortions, and the result of this app is that the women and doctors got harassed and threatened, and Apple removed that app because a Democratic administration forced it to. Would it make you that angry with Tim Cook?
The point of this exercise is to make you see that this, in the end, is about politics, not “the right thing to do”, and Apple’s stance (we follow the law and obey our government) may be grating, but it’s the most neutral and least controversial they can be
Show threadFreediverXOct 4, 2025
@Beirutspring @marcoarment
Do you really think those are two morally and ethically equivalent scenarios? Great job making a “both sides” argument in the middle of a fascist takeover of our country.
Show threadMustapha HamouiOct 4, 2025
@freediverx @marcoarment before replying to you, I looked at your profile. We agree on Palestine, but you’re one of those “fascist everything” people like Kottke. I’m sure you’re a nice guy but I don’t think we can reach to any agreement. Cheers
Show threadFreediverXOct 4, 2025

@Beirutspring @marcoarment
I don't think Cook is a fascist. I think he's just another soulless corporate executive who worships at the altar of unbridled capitalism and shareholder supremacy.

The only reason so many are calling him out on his caving to Trump is Apple's historical positioning as a company that “thinks different”, a company that ostensibly prioritizes making great products over chasing profits—which us why we (naively?) hold them to a higher standard.

Show threadMustapha Hamoui
@freediverx @marcoarment Apple and Tim Cook have always —always!—, “followed the law” in authoritarian regimes, from China to Russia to S Arabia. What is upsetting you is not that Apple has changed (it has not), but that the US has become an authoritarian regime. This has nothing to do with Apple and Marco’s accusation that somehow Tim Cook became a different person is unfounded.
Oct 4, 2025 at 2:41pmWeb
Show threadFreediverXOct 4, 2025

@Beirutspring @marcoarment
We’ve criticized Apple for kowtowing to authoritarian governments because we knew the same could happen in the US.

The “change” you refer to started w/Jobs' death & the company running on auto-pilot without its visionary (& highly flawed) founder.

The effects have been most noticeable in the decline of their software, but also in their politically meek & milquetoast executives.

Realistically, if Jobs were still alive I believe he would have betrayed us as well.

Show threadFreediverXOct 4, 2025
@Beirutspring @marcoarment
Such are the results of developing para-social relationships with corporations, and treating capitalism as a state religion.