Apple’s ICEblock capitulation is business as usual
So, I guess I’m going to need to keep writing this piece.
Say what you will about Apple’s decision this week to remove from the App Store the ICEBlock app that provided a way for people to crowd source the appearance of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their neighborhood. Is it good? Is it bad?1 One thing it isn’t is surprising.
We’ve been here before, so many times, since the beginning of this current administration. And I expect we’ll be returning to it for at least as long as the current administration is in power, maybe more. So let me repeat the maxim we should all be living by: do not expect a moral stand from a corporation.
ICEBlock developer Joshua Aaron (who, it should be noted, has taken criticism from security experts over some of his claims about the app), made a strong statement about the removal, saying “Capitulating to an authoritarian regime is never the right move.”2
Look, we had this discussion when Tim Cook ponied up $1 million to the inauguration fund and showed up. We had this discussion when Apple changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico in Apple Maps. We had it when he gave the president the silly trophy and promised more investment in American manufacturing. We had it a couple weeks ago when he went to the state dinner in the UK.
This is not to say that they never take moral stands. Every company is, after all, comprised of people, and every group of people has its breaking point. Take the repeated criticism from Microsoft employees of the company’s stance on providing services to the Israeli military. That did finally elicit some change from the company. Even Apple has taken a stand in the past against government overreach, perhaps most notably perhaps during the San Bernardino incident in 2016 where the company refused to help the FBI create a backdoor to access the iPhone of a suspected shooter.
This one, frankly, was a loser for Apple to fight. Not least of all because there was a recent shooting that allegedly targeted agents of that federal agency. True or not, it’s easy for the administration to point to that incident and argue that an app could be used to facilitate violence.3 But, come on, this is the App Store: Apple regularly rejects and removes apps for capricious reasons about design and branding. Something this contentious? It simply doesn’t want the heat.
Some might argue that Apple is insulated from danger by its size. But in some ways, that scale makes it more vulnerable. It makes it a bigger target for entities like the government, who can deliver even more damage to its bottom line than pretty much any bloc of committed consumers. Apple does not want to go to war with the government. Especially this government.
And, let’s not forget, that when we’re talking as many customers as Apple has, it is inevitable that some percentage of them—some not insignificant percentage—is actually going to agree with a decision like this.
Pressure is what moves the needle, and I’m sorry, but expounding on social media or podcasts or even, frankly, articles on websites about how wrong these decisions are doesn’t cut it. We’ve seen what does work: pressure from employees, to a certain extent, but more than anything, money. Specifically, money lost. When ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel, it reported saw a massive number of cancellations of Disney+ (even if those exact numbers are in doubt, it seems clear that it was a lot). You want to make a difference? You’re going to have to put your money where your mouth is, uncomfortable as it may be.
But even then, even if the company does “the right thing,” it won’t be a decision taken from a moral standpoint. It will be practical. Mercenary. Because that is what is demanded by this technological/capitalist terror we’ve devised for ourselves.4 That’s the rules of the game. Them’s the breaks. When Apple made the decision to stand firm in the San Bernardino case, it did so not because it was the right thing to do, but because its business reputation relies on its claims of privacy and security.
As several commentators have pointed out, Apple removed a similar app called HKmap.live during the Hong Kong democracy protests in 2019 under pressure from the Chinese government. Should we worry that the U.S. government is now being uttered in the same breath as the Chinese government?
I mean, yes.
None of this is to defend Tim Cook or Apple.5 It’s merely to point out they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do by the rules of the game they are playing. Corporations in our capitalist system are not incentivized to act morally. We cheer the company when it takes action that we find laudable because its interests intersecting with our own, but those moments are not born of virtue, they’re just…serendipity.
John Gruber has, for many years, made a point of Apple’s priorities: “Apple first, users second, developers last.”. Most often that’s used to illustrate the company’s seeming disregard for developers, the very people who help bolster their business, but it’s important not to lose sight of the top of that list: Apple first.
Frankly, there’s a reason Apple is spending far more time and energy decrying the Digital Markets Act in Europe than it is fighting authoritarian decisions in the U.S., and it’s not about the political alignment of the company’s leaders. It’s about money.
Look, I’m not saying “don’t be a fan of corporations”…I’m saying we probably should have never been a fan of corporations. We let them entangle our pocketbooks and our psyches to their own enrichment instead of a relationship that should have been kept strictly transactional.
Do not expect corporations to be your proxy in the fight against authoritarianism. They are, simply put, not designed for it. They are machines designed to return profit to shareholders and that means they fundamentally rely on a stability that you’re not going to get from making waves. You will always be disappointed.
- Yeah, it’s bad. I mean, even the Cato Institute—the Cato Institute—published a commentary back in July saying “[ICEBlock developer’s] Joshua Aaron’s creativity and public minded spirit is admirable.” ↩
- He ain’t wrong. ↩
- Never mind the reality, of course, that those agents were targeted at an ICE facility that probably could be found on any map. Which of course means the next logical authoritarian step is for the administration to demand tech companies start removing government building locations from their mapping software. 😬 ↩
- Proponents will tell you that capitalism means the best solution wins. But that’s not strictly true. The American implementation of capitalism has entirely eschewed the moral axis theorized by father of capitalism, Adam Smith for an entirely quantitative model. Meaning what wins is not the best solution, but the most cost-effective. Capitalistic success in America is a Bezos chart. ↩
- Meanwhile, other tech CEOs are out here spewing actual, overt racism. ↩
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His latest novel, the sci-fi spy thriller The Armageddon Protocol, is out now.]
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