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   Niléane (nileane@nileane.fr)'s status on Thursday, 08-May-2025 23:19:21 JST Niléane

   To the Apple fans fixated on defending Tim Cook, who have been clogging my replies on Mastodon and Bluesky over the past few days following my story on @macstories (https://www.macstories.net/stories/are-pride-wallpapers-and-a-watch-band-enough-in-2025/). Here is my response to you:

   In 2014, Brendan Eich, creator of the JavaScript language and now CEO of Brave Software, was appointed as CEO of Mozilla. I will quote his Wikipedia page for you (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich#Appointment_to_CEO_and_resignation), and you will very quickly understand why:

   > The appointment triggered widespread criticism due to Eich's past political donations – specifically, a 2008 donation of $1,000 to California Proposition 8, which called for the banning of same-sex marriage in California, and donations in the amount of $2,100 to Proposition 8 supporter Tom McClintock between 2008 and 2010.

   The news of Eich's donations led to major protests inside the company and among Mozilla's supporters, volunteers, and users. Most notably, half of Mozilla's board stepped down. Which ultimately led to him resigning, just 11 days later:

   > After 11 days as CEO, Eich resigned on April 3, 2014, and left Mozilla after public outrage. In his personal blog, he posted, "under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader".

   I would argue that Tim Cook's donation is an even worse offense than Eich's. Cook made his $1M donation to President Trump's inauguration fund while it had already been public knowledge for years that he would immediately start his mandate by rolling back LGBT rights in devastating ways.

   I think it would be more than fair to call for his resignation for the same reason that it was fair to call for Eich's resignation back in 2014. And yet, it seems that a majority of people are choosing to dismiss Cook's donation and subsequent stance regarding Trump's administration as either necessary, pardonable, or irrelevant.

   • Embed this notice
     Niléane (nileane@nileane.fr)'s status on Friday, 09-May-2025 06:21:30 JST Niléane

     in reply to

     “But Tim Cook made that donation out of his own pocket, not Apple's!”

     Tim Cook is the CEO of Apple. The CEO of Apple chose to donate $1M to the man enacting catastrophic policies targeting trans people and minorities in the US.

     To decouple that donation from the fact that he holds this position as the head of Apple; to pretend that Tim Cook exists publicly as anything other than the CEO of Apple; I think it would be dishonest, to say the least.

     My point stands firmer than ever now that Apple has introduced its 2025 Pride Collection. The company has brought this criticism upon itself.

     They are the ones choosing to sell Pride merchandise and simultaneously curtsy to the Trump administration. They are the ones making the decision not to protect their trans employees, not to increase their financial support to trans organizations, and not to utter the words “LGBTQ Pride“ at any other occasion this year than when they need to sell Apple Watch bands.

   • Embed this notice
     Niléane (nileane@nileane.fr)'s status on Friday, 09-May-2025 06:21:31 JST Niléane

     in reply to

     ”But what did you expect Niléane? We can’t expect the CEO of a tech giant to behave any differently.“

     Let me get this straight, Internet friend: Because tech giants have selfish economic interests, we shouldn't be criticizing their behavior and expect anything from them? We should all just let it go and move on because that's what big companies do?

     Apple is successfully protecting its economic interests, so they're exempt from all criticism. Is that what you're saying?

     I still fail to understand what is it that you people are trying to say when you reply to this criticism with “Tim Cook is just doing his job. He's protecting Apple's interests.” — I'm not denying that, and no one is.

     The only thing we're saying is: the successes Tim Cook has had protecting the interests of the company have a devastating human cost. And you are choosing to dismiss or minimize that fact entirely.

     Steve's Place repeated this.