Nunes: Parler Ban a Violation of Antitrust, Civil Rights, the RICO Statute — ‘There Should Be a Racketeering Investigation’
26,850 https://www.youtube.com/embed/PDM3AQOUqgMJeff Poor10 Jan 20212,883 2:08
During this week’s broadcast of FNC’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into tech companies’ efforts to remove Parler as a platform from the internet.
The California Republican cited violations of antitrust laws, civil rights and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
“Well, Maria, when I wrote that book, I was hoping to warn Americans so that they would vote right and that maybe this wouldn’t happen and this could be prevented,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s far worse than what I could even imagine. The effect of this is that there is no longer a free and open social media company or site for any American to get on any longer, because these big companies, Apple, Amazon, Google, they have just destroyed a — what was likely — Parler is likely a billion-dollar company. Poof, it’s gone. But it’s more than just the financial aspect to that. Republicans have no way to communicate. If — and it doesn’t even matter if you’re a Republican or conservative.”
“If you don’t want to be regulated by left-wingers that are at Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, where you get shadowbanned, nobody gets to see you — nobody gets to see you, they get to decide what’s violent or not violent, it’s preposterous,” Nunes continued. “So, I don’t know where the hell the Department of Justice is at right now or the FBI. This is clearly a violation of antitrust, civil rights, the RICO statute. There should be a racketeering investigation on all the people that coordinated this attack on not only a company but on all of those like us, like me, like you, Maria. I have 3 million followers on Parler. Tonight, I will no longer be able to communicate with those people. And they’re Americans.”
Tech giant Apple banned the developer account
of free speech-focused social media network Gab, preventing the company
from creating apps for iPhones and other Apple devices, shortly after
the startup submitted a complaint to the Department of Justice about Big
Tech’s anti-competitie business practices.
Breitbart News spoke with the CEO of Gab.com, Andrew Torba, about the
company’s recent developments. As Torba wrote on Twitter, the free
speech social media platform recently submitted a complaint to the DOJ
which it hopes will spark an investigation into the business practices
of the Masters of the Universe in Silicon Valley. Gab aimed to question
if these firms were acting in a deliberately anti-competitive manner
against smaller “alt-tech” businesses, and Apple’s recent actions may
have proven Gab’s point.
The Gab.com Twitter page made a number of tweets explaining the company’s viewpoint, these can be seen below:
BREAKING: Gab’s attorneys have submitted a
complaint to the Department of Justice in hopes of sparking a serious
investigation into Big Tech’s business practices to determine if, and
how, they are behaving in a deliberately anti-competitive manner against
alt-tech businesses.
Coordinated deplatforming, when done in such a
way as to limit competition in the free market, is illegal. Based on our
experience, we believe Silicon Valley companies are colluding to
exclude challengers to existing social media companies.
We hope the DOJ will mount a vigorous and
thorough investigation into this matter. In particular the duopoly on
mobile app distribution that Apple/Google have with 98% marketshare.
Shortly after this thread of tweets, Gab found that its new Dissenter
Web Browser had been rejected from Apple’s app store. Apple also chose
to ban the firm’s developer account entirely, citing “objectionable
content,” as the reason. Gab’s Dissenter browser is a web browser that
only delivers content that users purposefully visited, like Google
Chrome or Apple’s Safari browser, yet Apple believes that the app falls
under it’s “objectionable content” label.
BREAKING: Gab’s Dissenter Web Browser was
rejected by Apple today. Furthermore, we were banned from our App Store
developer account for “objectionable content.” For a web browser.
We have filed this information with the Department of Justice and urge them to investigate. pic.twitter.com/raw8u3cgX2
Gab CEO Andrew Torba told Breitbart News that Apple admitted that the
app itself did not break the company’s terms of service but rather they
were banning it because it was built by Gab. The company has since
reported this additional info to the Department of Justice. In a
statement, Torba told Breitbart News:
Coordinated deplatforming, when done in such a way as to
limit competition in the free market, is illegal. Based on our
experience, we believe Silicon Valley companies are colluding to exclude
challengers to existing social media companies. Big Tech understands
that curated walled gardens lose their vibrancy and fail, much as
Compuserve and AOL failed.
Gab is focused on giving The People back their digital sovereignty.
We are no longer simply building a free speech social network. We are
building the free speech internet. Our free speech web browser,
Dissenter, is only the beginning. We will be releasing a full product
line of open source free speech software that is decentralized, built,
and controlled by The People.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolanor email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
