Apple has issued a statement after conservative commentator Glenn Beck complained that his podcast had been suddenly removed “with no explanation”.
An Apple spokesperson told Variety that The Glenn Beck Program had been removed from Apple Podcasts due to a trademark dispute, which has since been resolved and the episodes have been restored.
The spokesperson declined to provide details on what the dispute entailed.
Beck, 59, is a right-wing political pundit and host of the radio show and co-founder of Blaze Media. He is also an author and was a fixture on Fox News with his show Glenn Beck, which now airs on TheBlaze.
He has been condemned by critics for spreading conspiracy theories.
Writing on Twitter on 16 August, Beck announced that his 3,0000-plus episodes have been re-added to the platform, but said he still doesn’t have “clear answers” as to why they had been removed in the first place.
Earlier that day, Beck had posted on X (formerly Twitter): “All of my podcasts have been removed from Apple/iTunes with no explanation.”
In a video shared to the social media platform, Beck said that he had received a message from Apple reading: “We found an issue with your show, The Glenn Beck Program, which must be resolved before it’s available on Apple Podcasts. Your show has been removed from Apple Podcasts.”
He continued: “They sent us a link and said, ‘For more details, go to the link.’ And the link only says ‘Your show has been removed from Apple Podcasts.’ Well, we got that one, dummy.”
Beck continued: “I cannot imagine what they are… basing this one on.”
“This is crazy, crazy… There’s nothing that we have said that would warrant any removal,” he said, claiming that Apple did not give him any warnings that his show may have been in violation of any company policies.
He went on to suggest that the timing of the removal of his episodes was suspiciously close to the 2024 presidential election.
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He said: “It’s probably just a glitch, but it’s amazing how we have to have a whole bunch of people point out the ‘glitch’ before the ‘glitch’ is found and [the show is] put back.
“I think the closer and closer we get to [the 2024 presidential] election, the more and more ‘glitches’ are gonna happen.”
On 16 August, Beck’s podcast published an episode titled “Trump vs Biden: Which is the crime family?”
The summary reads: “Glenn dives through some of the insane accusations in Donald Trump’s fourth indictment, which, if prosecuted, will set dangerous precedents for free speech. Glenn also compares this indictment to the evidence revealed regarding Hunter Biden and President Biden. Who’s the REAL crime family?”
