They say it is their responsibility, they don't want to be hosting and serving this content. They have mentioned it's their moral obligation, and they're just playing catch up to other providers.
The story that keeps getting mentioned is that Facebook reports about 55k images a day, Google reports about 1500/day, whereas Apple was reporting 250 a year.
You do understand that icloud is a private storage platform which is fundamentally different from Facebook/Instagram which are used for publicly sharing photos?
Okay? I don't work for Apple, and I'm not making any judgement or sharing my opinion, just answering the question that was asked in a way that I hope was objectively factual with little editorialising.
I will state though that Google Photos has in-servers CSAM detection, and Dropbox. You can have your own opinion about all of that.
The story that keeps getting mentioned is that Facebook reports about 55k images a day, Google reports about 1500/day, whereas Apple was reporting 250 a year.