is a senior editor following news across tech, culture, policy, and entertainment. He joined The Verge in 2021 after several years covering news at Engadget.
Apple has removed the “Waze but for ICE sightings” app ICEBlock from its App Store, as reported previously by Business Insider. A post from its developer relayed Apple’s App Review message about the ban, saying, “We just received a message from Apple’s App Review that #ICEBlock has been removed from the App Store due to ‘objectionable content.’ The only thing we can imagine is this is due to pressure from the Trump Admin. We have responded and we’ll fight this!”
The ICEBlock app rose to the top of the App Store’s charts this summer after being targeted by Trump administration officials, with US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem calling it an “obstruction of justice,” and Attorney General Pam Bondi claiming it was “not a protected speech.”
Today, Bondi took credit for the app’s removal, saying to Fox News Digital, “We reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so. ICEBlock is designed to put ICE agents at risk just for doing their jobs, and violence against law enforcement is an intolerable red line that cannot be crossed.” ICEBlock developer Joshua Aaron is quoted in the same report saying, it counts over 1.1 million users, and that “Apple has claimed they received information from law enforcement that ICEBlock served to harm law enforcement officers. This is patently false.”
Apple made similar claims in 2019 when it removed HKMap, an app that allowed Hong Kong protesters to trace the movements of law enforcement, with CEO Tim Cook telling employees that “over the past several days we received credible information, from the Hong Kong Cybersecurity and Technology Crime Bureau, as well as from users in Hong Kong, that the app was being used maliciously to target individual officers for violence and to victimize individuals and property where no police are present.”
At the time, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle spoke out against “Apple’s censorship of apps.” A letter signed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), and Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) said, “Cases like these raise real concern about whether Apple and other large US corporate entities will bow to growing Chinese demands rather than lose access to a billion Chinese consumers.”
Now, the Trump administration is restricting speech as part of a push against a vaguely defined threat of “antifa.”
As Elizabeth Lopatto and Sarah Jeong wrote earlier today:
Antifa, as described in the national security presidential memorandum (NSPM), is both everything and nothing. It is in forums and social media and in-person meetings. It is in educational organizations and nonprofit institutions. It is protests (“riots”) not just in Portland, but in Los Angeles as well, whether against Trump’s immigration policies or, separately, “anti-police and ‘criminal justice’ riots.” It is the doxxing of masked and armed ICE agents. It is the “rhetoric” on the bullets alleged to be engraved by Charlie Kirk’s killer — referring, it seems, to an unused bullet casing with a video game button combo on it.
So antifa could be a kid in a black mask tossing a brick at a CCTV camera at an ICE facility. Antifa could be the grandma on the sidewalk holding a sign reading “DONALD TRUMP IS A FASCIST.” Antifa is ACAB. Antifa is Fuck ICE. Antifa is No Kings. Antifa might be a reading group, a teach-in, an Instagram solicitation for mutual aid. Antifa could be the ICEBlock app, and the App Store could be providing material support for terrorism.
The ICEBlock app is intended to be used to intended to anonymously report sightings of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and see sightings reported within a 5-mile radius. It says it offers a “completely anonymous and secure” platform without the developer storing any information that is enabled by Apple’s ecosystem, and reverse engineering by at least one researcher confirmed it doesn’t share your data directly.
However, others have criticized its messaging, like the developers of Android-based GrapheneOS, who said the developer may be “misguided about the privacy provided by iOS.” Security engineer and journalist Micah Lee called the app “activism theater,” said many of Aaron’s claims in a speech about the app and its security were false, and noted that a server he operated was running outdated software with known vulnerabilities.
Apple has not yet responded to requests from The Verge for an on-the-record comment about the ICEBlock removal.
