Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is in the company of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler because of the iPhone’s impact on society, the head of one of Russia’s biggest state broadcasters said Monday.
Channel One CEO Konstantin Ernst called the iPhone “extremely harmful and monstrous for humanity” for “destroying human connection,” according to the independent news website Agentstvo.
“Nowadays, you don’t visit your parents, you call them. Sometimes this allows you to not visit them for months or even years,” Ernst was quoted as saying at a state-sponsored event. “You also relegate communicating with your friends to calling and then texting because calling is unethical nowadays.”
“That’s why, as a matter of principle, Steven Jobs is in a chain of characters where Adolf Hitler is in line just before him,” Ernst said.
The Kremlin last year reportedly banned its internal policy staff, including those involved in President Vladimir Putin’s 2024 re-election campaign, from using their iPhones for fear of espionage.
The Kremlin's spokesman admitted that as many as 30% of employees in the presidential administration continue to use iPhones for personal communication.
Ernst, 63, is under EU sanctions as the head of a major Russian media company responsible for “organizing and disseminating anti-Ukrainian propaganda.”
An International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) investigation of 12 million leaked financial documents in 2021 showed Ernst — who oversaw the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2014 Winter Olympics — was given a stake in a billion-dollar Moscow property deal. The Kremlin dismissed the report as unsubstantiated.
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