Rage baiting makes the Internet go round and The Verge published an editorial taking aim at two of Big Tech’s leaders: “Tim Cook And Sundar Pichai Are Cowards.” Article writer Elizabeth Lopatto dubbed Cook and Pichai as “cowards,” because of some disgusting actions by X users. X users utilized Grok to make AI images that undressed women and minors. That’s not good.
Lopatto thought these actions would inspire Pichai and Cook to remove X from Google’s and Apple’s app stores. She claims that these two are too afraid of Elon Musk to remove X. Lopatto cites the developer guidelines for Google and Apple app stores. Both guidelines don’t allow these disgusting action.
An enraged Lopatto wrote that Pichai and Cook won’t remove X (despite the breech of guidelines), because they don’t want to upset a right-wing media ecosystem that Musk owns. Each of these Big Tech leaders have too much to lose in her summation:
“Cook’s Apple has a massive dependency on China, and smartphones, computers, and chips are currently exempt from the tariffs on China. Cook can present Donald Trump with as many golden gifts as he wants, but those tariffs don’t have to stay that way. Google’s Pichai is similarly weak. Trump has threatened Google numerous times over his placement in search results, and so far YouTube has managed to mostly avoid scrutiny over its content moderation policies because Pichai has been content to coddle Trump with promises that everything he does is the biggest thing in Google search history.”
She continues to claim these men “sold their principles for power” and “don’t even control their own companies.” Lopatto is correct that Pichai and Cook are hypocrites and so is everyone in Big Tech. It is concerning that AI algorithms are making degrading images of women and minors. It is 2026, and perhaps as the Verge works hard to become the industry standard for rock solid technology news and analysis, new intellectual paths just have to be clicked. Ooops. Sorry, I meant explored. My bad.
Whitney Grace, January 30, 2026