Apple is quietly forcing X to pull iPhone 18 Pro leak videos and suspending the accounts that posted them — another reminder that the most powerful corporations in America can disappear information from the internet whenever it suits their bottom line.
Videos showing an iPhone 18 Pro undergoing drop testing hit X this week after a cyberattack on Tata Electronics, Apple's manufacturing partner in India. Within a day, the clips were gone. X took down the posts citing a violation of platform rules, and the @EvLeaks account that originally shared the footage was suspended. 9to5Mac pulled its own coverage of the leak. Ice Universe, who had reposted the clips, claimed on Weibo that Apple had "already banned the leaked data on Twitter."
Apple hasn't said a word publicly. But the speed and sweep of the removals — posts nuked, accounts suspended, a news outlet retreating — tell you who's giving the orders. Evan Blass, the leaker historically associated with the EvLeaks name, distanced himself from the new account and noted the significance: "Looks like Apple may have done what Samsung never could." Samsung leaks circulate freely. Apple leaks get memory-holed.
MacRumors, which covered the crackdown in detail, reported that it's unclear whether the takedown requests came from Apple or Tata. The Verge, by contrast, barely acknowledged the censorship at all — its brief item framed the story as "leaks are dropping in" and moved on. The Verge buried the most important part: a major corporation is using platform rules to erase information from the public internet, and a tech press outlet is helping by scrubbing its own report.
The leaked footage appears genuine. Reuters, which reported on the Tata breach separately, described similar Apple-watermarked documents, component details, supplier information, and codenames circulating on the dark web. Reuters said Apple is "concerned" about the stolen files and is working with Tata on long-term security measures. That's a corporate security problem. But the response — silencing the people who shared already-leaked information — is a free speech problem.
Here's the pattern: a breach happens, information gets out, and then the platform gates slam shut at Apple's bidding. X enforces the takedown. A news outlet self-censors. The account disappears. And the public is left with nothing but the word of a trillion-dollar company that the information it never wanted you to see wasn't worth seeing anyway.
Apple sells itself as the champion of user privacy. But privacy from the government and privacy from Apple are two different things. When Apple's corporate interests are at stake, it reaches for the same censorship tools it claims to oppose — and the platforms fall in line.
The question isn't whether leaked trade secrets are inconvenient for Apple. They are. The question is who gets to decide what information the public can access, and why a private corporation with the power to vanish content from the internet is exercising that power without a single public explanation.