The point that I find hard to dismiss when talking about the differences in Apple's privacy policies versus Facebook, Twitter, Google, et.al, is that there is,

The point that I find hard to dismiss when talking about the differences in Apple's privacy policies versus Facebook, Twitter, Google, et.al, is that there is, in fact, a significant difference between the privacy of an email, text message, or phone call, and the privacy of a post on facebook, or a tweet. With a phone call, people require warrants, which require judges, in order to listen into a phone call, and similarly with a text message (I assume, I don't know the law about SMS vs phone calls). However, it's understood when using services like Facebook or Twitter that unless otherwise and explicitly stated, your posts/tweets are public, searchable by the public, and kept on servers that are well beyond your control. Because of this fundamental difference in security, I think it is fair to say that Apple can make a real and authentic claim to caring about user's privacy. I believe under no circumstances should my phone calls or emails be accessible, searchable, or indexed anywhere other than by myself and the people they are distributed to. SMSs ought to be encrypted and be able to be decrypted by myself or the recipient only. These modes of communication are fundamentally different, and apple has the ability to implement these precautions, and I believe they are truly trying to do so. I don't see how it's even a fair comparison to say Apple is hypocritical compared to the social media giants and Google. They offer fundamentally different services, and should be expected to respect privacy on fundamentally different standards. I don't advocate lower bars, I want high bars for everybody. That is why I applaud Tim Cook for making it a point for Apple to adhere to a high standard of privacy protection. I genuinely hope that what he says reflects the true implementation of that policy.