Dylan Byers Reports Tim Cook and Eddy Cue Decided to Remove Alex Jones’s Infowars Podcasts From iTunes, Facebook and YouTube Followed Apple’s Lead

Dylan Byers, in his Pacific newsletter:

• Amid mounting public pressure to address Jones’ hate speech, Apple’s Tim Cook and Eddy Cue met over the weekend and decided to pull five of Jones’ podcasts from their platform, sources familiar with the matter told me.

• Cook and Cue decided to let Jones’ InfoWars app remain available in the app store because they felt it did not run afoul of their policy. […]

• Zuckerberg only moved to remove these pages after learning about Apple’s decision, Facebook sources said. That is why the pages were removed at 3 a.m. Pacific Time.

• YouTube’s Susan Wojcicki and Spotify’s Daniel Ek similarly moved to ban some of Jones’ content only after learning about Apple’s decision.

• There was no coordination between Apple, Facebook and any of the other tech firms, sources familiar with the matter said. The decisions were made independently.

Assuming Byers’s reporting is solid, there we have it: Apple led the way.

★ Wednesday, 8 August 2018