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Anti-gun activists demand Apple drop NRATV. Apple CEO refuses to comply.
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Anti-gun activists demand Apple drop NRATV. Apple CEO refuses to comply.

Apple CEO Tim Cook shut down anti-gun activists' demands that Apple pull the National Rifle Association's video channel from the tech company's streaming platform, Apple TV.

What are the details?

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Cook simply doesn't believe in that kind of censorship.

"Democracy without discourse is not a democracy," he said in a recent interview, according to the outlet.

In the days after February's deadly Parkland, Florida, mass killing, many companies severed ties with the NRA itself, placing blame on the gun group for the deadly massacre. Apple was not one of them.

The NRA responded to the boycotts with a scathing statement of their own, pushing back on the corporations for their boycotts and calling their actions a "shameful display of political and civic cowardice."

"In time, these brands will be replaced by others who recognize that patriotism and determined commitment to Constitutional freedoms are characteristics of a marketplace they very much want to serve," the NRA wrote in February.

What about constitutional freedoms?

With his recent statement, Cook appeared to agree that stifling constitutional freedoms are probably not the way to go in the U.S. Adding that while he doesn't necessarily agree with the NRA's "positions" or "tactics," and noting that "some of the things they've said are unbelievably distasteful," Cook said he refuses to remove the gun organization's channel from Apple TV because he believes it's important to share differing points of view.

Cook did note that Apple TV would, however, opt to remove NRATV if it engaged in "hate speech." He did not offer examples of what he personally considered "hate speech," nor did he say who, specifically, would determine what "hate speech" actually entailed.

"Then we're cutting it off," he said.

He also explained that Apple TV doesn't directly distribute NRATV from its platform.

"We place the [NRATV app] in the App Store so somebody can go in and download it, and they stream the content," he explained.

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