Speaking to Fox News
Sunday, Cook justified suspending
Parler, favored by supporters of President Donald Trump.
Apple suspended all
downloads of the Parler app
following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, citing postings on the
platform that could incite further violence. Google and Amazon also cut ties with the company.
"We looked at the incitement to violence that was on there,
and we don't consider that free speech and incitement to violence has an
intersection," Cook said.
In Apple's case,
"we've only suspended them," Cook said. "So, if they get their
moderation together, they would be back on" the App Store.
Parler's popularity
skyrocketed after Twitter permanently banned Trump following the Capitol attack, which Cook called "one of the saddest moments of my life" and
"an attack on our democracy."
"I felt like I
was in some sort of an alternate reality," he said. "This could not be
happening."
The day Apple
suspended downloads for Parler, it was the top downloaded app from the App
Store in the US.
Google has also banned
downloads of the app.
Parler, which launched
in 2018, operates much like Twitter, with profiles to follow and
"parleys" instead of tweets.
In its early days, the
platform attracted a crowd of ultraconservative and even extreme-right users.
But more recently, it has signed up many more traditional Republican voices.
"We have an app
store that has about two million apps in it," said Cook. "We
obviously don't control what's on the Internet. But we've never viewed that our
platform should be a simple replication of the internet.
"We have rules
and regulations and we just ask that people abide by those."
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