Posted by John Gruber

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_apple_and_google_on_removing_x_and_grok_from_app_store_192026pdf.pdf

U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), and Ben Ray Luján (D-New Mexico), in a letter addressed to Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai:

Your app stores’ policies are clear. Google’s terms of service require apps to “prohibit users from creating, uploading, or distributing content that facilitates the exploitation or abuse of children” including prohibiting the “portrayal of children in a manner that could result in the sexual exploitation of children.” Apps that do not are said to be subject to “immediate removal from Google Play” for violations. Similarly, Apple’s terms of service bar apps from including “offensive” or “just plain creepy” content, which under any definition must include nonconsensually-generated sexualized images of children and women. Further, Apple’s terms explicitly bar apps from including content that is “[o]vertly sexual or pornographic material” including material “intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings.”

Turning a blind eye to X’s egregious behavior would make a mockery of your moderation practices. Indeed, not taking action would undermine your claims in public and in court that your app stores offer a safer user experience than letting users download apps directly to their phones. This principle has been core to your advocacy against legislative reforms to increase app store competition and your defenses to claims that your app stores abuse their market power through their payment systems.

Emphasizing that leaving X and Grok available in the App Store and Play Store directly contradicts Apple and Google’s stated reasons for maintaining control over software distribution is a good pressure point. Do they selectively enforce content moderation based on whims and/or shifting political winds, or rigorously enforce the plain language of their own content guidelines? Which is it? It can’t be both.

https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_apple_and_google_on_removing_x_and_grok_from_app_store_192026pdf.pdf