Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk called out Apple Monday for suspending some of its advertising on the social media platform.
Musk also publicly mused if the heads of Apple "hate free speech."
Via social media, Musk announced, "Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?"
Musk then tweeted to Apple CEO Tim Cook, writing, "What’s going on here @tim_cook?"
Left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters for America found 50 of Twitter's leading 100 advertisers have halted their work on the platform.
The 50 companies accounted for approximately $750 million in spending on Twitter over the course of 2022.
Musk claimed that Apple "has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why."
Afterward, Musk posted several tweets condemning Apple for its "monopoly" on tech products and its censorship of certain language.
LBRY, a content sharing and publishing platform posted on its Twitter account: "Apple may make good products, but they have been opposed to free speech for some time.
"During Covid, Apple demanded our apps filter some search terms from being returned. If we did not filter the terms, our apps would not be allowed in the store," the account wrote in response to Musk's question about Apple and free speech.
"What terms?" responded Musk.
LBRY responded, "Apple disallowed almost anything related to Covid, especially vaccines or human origins of the virus. We had to build a list of over 20 terms to now show results for, only on Apple. Apple also later rejected us because users included Pepe images in videos."
"Secret suppression of free speech by Apple," tweeted Musk. "Customers were never told. What the hell is going on here?"
In a final tweet, LBRY said, "If Apple ever pressures you to ban anyone from Twitter, ban them *only* from the iOS app and let all Apple users know. They can shake their fists at the open protocols of the internet."
Social media platforms, such as Parler and Gab, have been suspended and banned by Apple for non-compliance to their speech regulatory terms.
Twitter, under Elon Musk, has been accused of increased levels of hate speech, giving room for Apple to act as it has with the aforementioned platforms — ban from the App Store.
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