*We’re making it easier than ever to take action with us: If we already have your information in our records, you just need to click one of the links or buttons below to instantly sign the petition.* |
Tell Apple and Google: Don’t Silence Dissent
Friend,
In early October, Apple and Google began removing apps from their app stores following demands from the Trump administration.1 The targeted apps were ones designed to crowdsource information about nearby ICE raids, the same way many GPS apps monitor traffic conditions on the highway.
Crowdsourcing information on government operations – including livestreaming law enforcement and ICE agents’ conduct – is protected by the First Amendment like other live reporting.
But the Trump administration has set its sights on anyone monitoring its expanding war on dissent, and it’s turning to major tech companies to help. As dominant app store operators, Apple and Google have significant control over the content people can access through their phones: Corporate consolidation dangerously limits open access to products and information.
This is not the first time the app stores have cut off access to apps in response to government requests to quash popular organizing and silence dissent. In 2019, following pressure from the Chinese government, Apple removed an app that pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong used.2 In 2021, Google and Apple both removed an app built to coordinate protest votes against Vladimir Putin.3
ICE has a larger operational budget than nearly every military force on the planet4 and now trillion-dollar companies are lending their support as well. This unaccountable partnership highlights how major tech and media companies — some of the wealthiest and most powerful corporations in the history of the planet — are actively enabling Trump’s white-nationalist agenda. They are colluding with this administration’s drive to criminalize dissent and shut down communities that are fighting for their rights.
This is a humanitarian and free speech crisis — add your name to our petition urging tech companies to resist government pressure and protect their users. *One click on the link or button will instantly add your name to our petition if we have your details on file.*
To Apple and Google:
Apps like ICEBlock are vehicles for free expression and valuable tools for diverse U.S. communities seeking to protect themselves and their neighbors against incursions by masked, unidentifiable federal agents. Removing this software from your app stores betrays your own corporate commitments to freedom of information and expression and puts lives in danger.
Resist government censorship of free speech now.
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Meanwhile, the Trump administration has no qualms about sharing its own highly-produced videos of ICE operations – including reels featuring people who are half-dressed after having been violently yanked from their beds in the middle of the night.
Just last week, federal agents used flashbang grenades, drones, and helicopters to storm an apartment building full of sleeping families — with cameras in tow.5 But if you ask executives at companies like Apple and Google, community members sharing information about and documenting these raids are the real danger.
ICE agents already hide their faces and now Apple and Google are cloaking their activities in our communities. Together, we must shine a spotlight on ICE abuses and call Big Tech to account for its complicity with this technofascist secret police force.
Thanks for your support,
Jenna and the rest of us at Free Press
1. “Amidst Violent Immigration Raids, DHS Turns to Big Tech to Silence Dissent,” Tech Policy Press, Oct. 3, 2025
2. “After China Objects, Apple Removes App Used By Hong Kong Protesters,” NPR, Oct. 10, 2019
3. “Google and Apple, Under Pressure From Russia, Remove Voting App,” The New York Times, Sep. 17, 2021
4. “ICE’s Mind-Bogglingly Massive Blank Check,” The Atlantic, July 31, 2025
5. “DHS Leans Into Propaganda With Militaristic Action Videos,” CNN, Oct. 10, 2025
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