Tim Cook hopes Parler will return to Apple Store

Tim Cook hopes the right-wing social media site Parler will eventually return to Apple’s App Store.

“I’m hoping that they put in the moderation that’s required to be on the store and come back, because I think having more social networks out there is better than having less,” the Silicon Valley giant’s chief executive said during an episode of The New York Times’s “Sway” podcast published Monday.

Parler, which has pitched itself as a free speech alternative platform to Facebook and Twitter, was removed from both Apple’s and Google’s app stores shortly after the violent insurrection at the Capitol in January.

Apple made the decision after determining that Parler had failed to take sufficient action against content on the platform encouraging violence in the run up to the siege that left five dead.

Amazon also dropped Parler from its hosting service for similar concerns.

Cook had previously said that the social media platform would be allowed back on the App Store if its content moderation improved.

“We work hard to get people on the store, not to keep people off the store,” Cook said on “Sway.”

Parler has pushed back on claims that it allowed violent content to fester on its platform, including claiming in a letter to a lawmaker last month that it had alerted the FBI to some posts.