Apple CEO Tim Cook said hate speech has “no place” on the company’s platforms as he accepted an award from a campaign group fighting anti-Semitism.
Speaking after being named the inaugural winner of the Anti-Defamation League’s Courage Against Hate Award, Cook said the technology company would not tolerate anyone trying to spread hate using the company’s products.
“We only have one message for those who seek to push hate, division and violence: you have no place on our platform. You have no home here,” he said.
“From the earliest days of iTunes to Apple Music today, we have always prohibited music with a message of white supremacy. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do.
“And, as we showed this year, we won’t give a platform to violent conspiracy theorists on the App Store. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Earlier this year, Apple was one of several technology firms to remove conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his Infowars brand from their platforms.
The likes of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Spotify also removed Jones’s content.
‘Doing what’s right’
“At Apple, we are not afraid to say that our values drive our curation decisions. And why should we be? Doing what’s right, creating experiences free from violence and hate, experiences that empower creativity and new ideas is what our customers want us to do,” Cook added.
“Technology should be about human attention. It should be about optimism. And we believe the future should belong to those who use technology to build a better, more inclusive and more hopeful world.”
The Apple chief executive was speaking at the ADL’s Never Is Now Summit in New York, where he said the company’s products are meant to improve lives.
“Apple is a technology company, but we never forget that the devices we make are imagined by human minds, built by human hands and are meant to improve human lives,” he said.
“I sometimes say that I worry less about computers that look like people, and more about people who think like computers, without values and compassion, without concern for consequences. And so we try to stay rooted and to keep our devices connected to the humanity that makes us us.”
