According to Mashable, Apple’s ethical positioning as an LGBTQ+ ally has starkly collided with its business decisions. In 2014, CEO Tim Cook publicly came out as gay, framing it as a moral stand and making Apple the first Fortune 500 company with an openly gay CEO. However, the company recently removed two major gay dating apps, Blued and Finka, from its App Store in China at Beijing’s request without any statement. This follows a 2021 reversal where Apple announced, then paused 30 days later, a privacy-protected system to detect known Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) on iCloud, despite expert validation. Apple’s services business, including iCloud, generates nearly $100 billion annually with 75% gross margins, yet iCloud remains one of the few major cloud platforms not proactively scanning for known CSAM, leading to lawsuits from survivors.
The Profitable Paradox
Here’s the thing: Apple‘s actions create a pretty cynical pattern. It’s incredibly easy and profitable to wrap yourself in a Pride flag when selling phones in San Francisco or New York. That marketing sells. But when the Chinese government, a massive market, tells you to censor queer lives, the rainbow facade vanishes. Poof. No fight, no public defense, just silent compliance. And that’s the real test of a company’s values, isn’t it? When doing the right thing might actually cost you something.
The same calculus seems to apply to the CSAM issue. They developed a technically sophisticated solution, got experts like cryptographer Benny Pinkas to vouch for its privacy safeguards, and then… folded. They retreated after public backlash, even though their own arguments had dismantled the privacy concerns. Now, with iCloud pulling in insane profits, they’ve left a gaping hole that other platforms, like Google, have long since filled with hash-matching and AI. It’s negligence, plain and simple. They’ll monetize the storage but avoid the responsibility of making sure that storage isn’t used to traffic abuse imagery.
Thinking Different Is Dead
So what does this tell us? The old Apple mantra of “Think Different” is basically dead. It’s been replaced with “Think Profit.” And I get it, they’re a corporation. But they’ve spent decades and billions building a brand that promised more—that promised creativity, progress, and yes, even a kind of ethical stance. Tim Cook’s personal story became part of that brand. Now, that brand feels hollow, a marketing tool to be deployed when convenient and shelved when risky.
Look, the op-ed author, Lennon Torres, makes a compelling point: Apple has all the resources and expertise to lead on both fronts. They could implement proven tools from groups like Thorn or the MOORE Center. They could take a stand. Instead, they choose inaction. It’s a choice. And it’s one that regulators, investors, and frankly, consumers, need to start scrutinizing a lot more closely. When ethics are just an optional accessory to the quarterly earnings report, we’ve got a major problem.
