Twitter seems to have been in a whirlwind of controversies since Elon Musk bought it about three weeks ago. When it comes to controversies, most brands tend to shy away from them, and that has seen some uncertainty pop up around Twitter’s future as an advertising platform as companies started pulling their ad campaigns from the website.
The chaos tax isn’t just coming in with Twitter losing some adveritsers, but also with the company losing some users. The latest seems to be Apple’s Phil Schiller, who has deactivated his Twitter account. While this doesn’t automatically have to mean that Twitter is in trouble with Apple, it could signal that trouble may be on the way.
Poor content moderation could spell trouble for Twitter as Apple App Store chief deactivates account
While I expect lots of leeway, there is a real scenario in which Apple/Google remove Twitter because of content moderation issues or because Twitter decides to bypass the 15%-30% cuts. Notably, we appear to now know how Apple’s App Store chief feels about the new Twitter. https://t.co/PCjOEsWA1L pic.twitter.com/LWjFCgxINANovember 20, 2022
Phil Schiller is the head of events and the App Store at Apple. While he wasn’t too active on Twitter, Schiller deactivating his account is potentially a sign of trouble to come. Schiller had been on the platform since 2008 and had over 200,000 followers. In his latest power-on newsletter, Mark Gurman pointed out that it is possible that the lesser moderation on Twitter under the new owner could put it in an awkward situation.
While Apple hasn’t yet made any official remarks about advertising on Twitter or about the change in moderation policy, the company might take issue with those things as the platform descends into further chaos.
Twitter has plans to increase monetization, and Apple as well as Google will be crucial in that journey. With the company’s revamped Twitter Blue subscription coming later this month, it will be unfortunate if Apple takes objection to the new verification process and content moderation policy. We could potentially even see Apple removing the app from App Store, making the best iPhones unable to use the app.