Are Apple and Elon Musk’s Twitter on a collision course?

New Twitter owner Elon Musk wants to increase the amount of money the company makes through subscriptions while opening up the site to more free speech. But, this creates a risk that Twitter could violate Apple’s App Store (or Google Play’s) rules in a way that impedes the company or even gets its app booted from the app stores.

Kif Leswing for CNBC:

Musk’s plans for Twitter could put it in conflict with two of the biggest tech companies: Apple and Google.
Tensions are already brewing. Musk complained in a tweet just last week about app store fees that Google and Apple charge companies like Twitter.
“App store fees are obviously too high due to the iOS/Android duopoly,” Musk tweeted. “It is a hidden 30% tax on the Internet.” In a follow-up post, he tagged the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, which is reportedly investigating app store rules.

App store fees are obviously too high due to the iOS/Android duopoly.
It is a hidden 30% tax on the Internet.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 19, 2022

Over the weekend, Phil Schiller, the former head Apple marketing executive who still oversees the App Store, apparently deleted his widely-followed Twitter account with hundreds of thousands of followers.
Musk faces the power of Apple and Google and their ability to decline to approve or even pull apps that violate their rules over content moderation and harmful content.
There’s precedent for a complete ban. Apple and Google banned Parler, a much smaller and conservative-leaning site, in 2020… Although Apple approved Truth Social, Trump’s social networking app, in February, it took longer for Google Play to approve it. Google eventually approved the app in October, saying that apps need to “remove objectionable posts such as those that incite violence.”
Still, Apple and Google are unlikely to want to wade into a difficult battle over what constitutes harmful information and what doesn’t. That could end up inviting public scrutiny and political debate…

MacDailyNews Take: As George R.R. Martin said, “When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”
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