Apple's major developer conference, WWDC, is underway today, and protesters are using the occasion to urge the company to remove "nudify apps" from the App Store and eliminate "known" child sexual abuse material from iCloud. Outside the visitor center at Apple's Cupertino campus, demonstrators have erected a large sign reading "Apple is powered by child sexual abuse" and posing a question to incoming CEO John Ternus: "What will you do?"
Protest Groups and Their Demands
The protesters represent UltraViolet, a women's advocacy group, and Heat Initiative, an organization dedicated to holding tech companies accountable for enabling and profiting from child sexual abuse. Earlier this year, Apple and Google faced significant scrutiny for continuing to host apps like xAI's Grok on their app stores, despite users being able to create nonconsensual sexualized deepfakes using them.
Financial Implications Highlighted
In pamphlets distributed during the protest, the organizations claim that "at least 47 nudify apps have been found on Apple's App Store" and that "Apple has made an estimated $117 million minimum from nudify apps," including "an estimated $35+ million from Grok alone," citing data from the Tech Transparency Project. UltraViolet has also launched a dedicated website for the protest.
Apple previously abandoned plans to scan photos saved to iCloud for child sexual abuse imagery due to privacy concerns. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
