West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc., alleging the company knowingly allowed its iCloud platform to be used as a vehicle for distributing and storing child sexual abuse material, and for years chose to do nothing about it. (Blacqbook – iStock / Getty Images)
By Samuel Short February 20, 2026 at 11:05am
West Virginia is going after Apple as a completely evil admission has come to light: Its services are widely used for child pornography.
The statement comes from internal communications between Apple employees about the iCloud service. Reuters reported Thursday that a former company anti-fraud chief called this software “the greatest platform for distributing child porn.”
That day, West Virginia Attorney General John B. McCuskey filed a lawsuit, alleging the company puts privacy above the safety of children. “These images are a permanent record of a child’s trauma, and that child is victimized every time the material is shared or viewed,” he said.
Apple made its own statement.
The company says it is “innovating every day to combat ever-evolving threats and maintain the safest, most trusted platform for kids.
“All of our industry-leading parental controls and features, like Communication Safety — which automatically intervenes on kids’ devices when nudity is detected on Messages, shared Photos, AirDrop and even live FaceTime calls — are designed with the safety, security, and privacy of our users at their core.”
Although iCloud reportedly does not use end-to-end encryption for all information shared, which would put it outside the reach of investigators and the company, the lawsuit focuses on this tool for what Reuters calls a “move toward” it.
PC Magazine clarified that in 2022, iCloud introduced optional end-to-end encryption.
Clearly, something must be done.
In May 2025, Forbes ranked Apple the most valuable brand in the world for the fourth straight year.
This is a company so massive, with software and hardware in millions of homes across the globe, and its cloud service is known for one thing: evil, disgusting, criminal perversions.
For every day this goes on, Apple executives are making money off of children being abused and having their lives ruined.
McCuskey’s office says this case is the first of its kind. According to a news release, McCuskey commented, “Preserving the privacy of child predators is absolutely inexcusable.
“And more importantly, it violates West Virginia law. Since Apple has so far refused to police themselves and do the morally right thing, I am filing this lawsuit to demand Apple follow the law, report these images, and stop re-victimizing children by allowing these images to be stored and shared.”
In that same release, McCuskey’s office indicated it appears Apple is massively underreporting child porn on its platforms.
“Federal law requires all technology companies based in the U.S. to report detected CSAM to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). In 2023, Apple made just 267 such reports. By contrast, Google filed 1.47 million reports and Meta filed more than 30.6 million. Apple’s failure to deploy available detection technology is not a passive oversight — it is a choice.”
The U.S. Department of Justice should be involved, not just one state.
This should be a major issue across the country.
Sam Short is an Instructor of History with Motlow State Community College in Smyrna, Tennessee. He holds a BA in History from Middle Tennessee State University and an MA in History from University College London. The views expressed in his articles are his own and do not reflect the views or opinions of Motlow State Community College.
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