Dean Jackson is a contributing editor at Tech Policy Press.

On October 2, Apple complied with demands from the United States Department of Justice that it delist an application called ICEBlock from the app store. ICEBlock allows users to anonymously share the location of agents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

As reported by 404 media, Apple removed the app for violating guideline 1.1.1 of the App Store rules. That guideline disallows content which is “defamatory, discriminatory, or mean-spirited” against “targeted groups”; Apple’s explanation to the ICEBlock’s developer stated that “information provided to Apple by law enforcement shows that your app violates Guideline 1.1.1 because its purpose is to provide location information about law enforcement officers that can be used to harm such officers.”

In the days since, media have reported on other ICE-watching apps delisted not just by Apple but also Google, under a similar rationale. The two companies whose software runs nearly every American cellphone now apparently consider ICE—whose agents frequently wear masks and whose violence against civilians is well-documented—to merit protection on par with those against hate speech.

The situation quickly snowballed. In the days following, Meta complied with a DOJ request that the company remove a Facebook group where users reported ICE sightings. A Meta spokesperson told the Chicago Sun-Times that the group was removed for violating Meta’s policies against coordinated harm. According to the Sun-Times, the group had nearly 80,000 members at the time of takedown.

Apple escalated the crackdown beyond reporting of ICE agents’ real-time location, removing an app called Eyes Up which collects video evidence of ICE activity for use in future court cases. The developer, who received a notice from Apple functionally identical to the one ICEBlock received, appealed unsuccessfully.

Free speech principles on thin ice

Why has Big Tech suppressed the speech of tens of thousands of Americans at the Trump administration’s behest—a capitulation which contradicts the industry’s recent pronouncements? For example, in a 2024 letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan R-OH), Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg lamented:

In 2021, senior officials from the Biden Administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content… I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it… we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.

In September 2025, just weeks before delisting ICE-spotting applications, attorneys for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, also sent a letter to Jordan emphasizing the company’s “unwavering” commitment to free expression, writing that it would “not bend to political pressure.” Both Meta and Google’s commitments look much less firm today.

As for the government’s rationale, Attorney General Pam Bondi claims that ICE faces a “wave of violence… driven by online apps and social media campaigns.” The White House agrees, claiming that agents face a 1,000 percent increase in assaults. But according to NPR, court records show a much smaller increase of 25 percent—perhaps a foreseeable consequence of the agency’s increased activity and brazen violence in communities where it is unpopular.

There have been individual acts of violence noteworthy for their horrible, dramatic nature. In September, a man opened fire on an immigration facility with apparent intent to murder ICE agents, killing two detainees and no officers. FBI director Kash Patel claims that the shooter searched for apps that track ICE agents, but it does not seem as though these were integral to his plans. The perpetrator climbed a building near a federal facility at 3 a.m. and waited more than three hours for his intended targets to arrive.

Free speech advocates say the push to limit observation of ICE agents is not motivated by any legitimate interest; it is about suppressing dissent. But it appears that Washington and Silicon Valley are unashamed of blatant double standards about whose speech—and lives—matter. After pardoning the January 6 insurrectionists, whose crimes include assaults on law enforcement, the Trump administration is gloating about denying visas based on applicants’ statements about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and retaliating against media outlets for reporting on ICE operations. After Kirk’s assassination, Republicans called for social media companies to remove criticism of his views, and platforms warned users for violating their policies against glorification of violence. Would that they had taken calls for violence before the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, which resulted in the deaths of five Capitol Police officers, as seriously.

The winter of our discontent

If citizens cannot record the state when it is brings violence to their neighborhoods—when its agents throw the elderly against the asphalt, riddle bodies with bullets, arbitrarily detain citizens for weeks without access to family or attorneys, and snatch children from their homes while proudly proclaiming “f*** them kids”—when can they? Must the public make only meek requests for accountability and transparency? That is not democracy.

Each week the US descends further into authoritarianism with disorienting speed and no bottom in sight. Only a few years ago, human rights watchdogs were alarmed that Silicon Valley tech companies removed applications developed by protesters in Hong Kong and the Russian opposition movement at the respective requests of the Chinese and Russian governments. Now they have done so at home. In the Russian case, the request came after the government had designated the opposition an extremist movement; in September, President Trump signed an executive order designating Antifa a domestic terrorist organization. The parallel is unnerving, even though Antifa is not a real organization and there is no legal means to designate a domestic terrorist group. As Elizabeth Lopatto and Sarah Jeong write in The Verge, if anti-fascism is terrorism, any act of dissent could be considered terrorism.

The resilience of US activists is a glimmer of hope on a dark horizon. The developers behind ICEBlock, Eyes Up, and similar apps have not given up. Defying threats from Trump’s DOJ, they continue to fight to make their technology available despite Big Tech’s cowardice. Their bravery stands in contrast to larger institutions which have failed to meet the moment.