Representative Devin Nunes, R-Calif., Called for an extortion investigation on Sunday following decisions by Amazon, Apple and Google to suspend the alternative social media platform Parler after Wednesday’s US Capitol riot.
During an interview on Sunday Morning Futures, Nunes said Parler’s suspension by Amazon, Apple and Google is “clearly a violation” of antitrust, civil rights and Racketeer’s Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which it is a federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.
“I don’t know where the hell the Justice Department or the FBI is,” the House of Commons Standing Committee on Intelligence told hosts Maria Bartiromo.
Nunes argued that “there should be an extortion investigation on all the people who coordinated this attack not just on a company, but on everyone like us.
“I have 3 million followers on Parler,” he added. “Tonight I will no longer be able to communicate with these people and they are American.”
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The DOJ and the FBI did not immediately respond to Fox News’s request for comment.
Nunes made the comments on Sunday, before Amazon planned to suspend Parler from its Amazon Web Services (AWS) unit, in a move that takes the site offline unless it finds another hosting service.
Amazon says the move was made for violating AWS terms of service by not effectively dealing with a steady increase in violent content, according to an email sent by an AWS trust and security team to Parler, reported by Reuters.
AWS was planning to suspend Parler’s account starting Sunday at 11:59 pm PST, according to the email. An Amazon spokesman confirmed that the letter was authentic.
Amazon Web Services acceptable use policy prevents customers from using their services for “illegal, harmful or offensive” content. An Amazon representative declined to comment.
Parler is facing criticism over Wednesday’s riot, which saw supporters of President Trump raiding the U.S. Capitol, attacking the police, vandalizing the building and stealing items from inside.
Screenshots taken from Parler and shared on other social media platforms appear to show Parler users openly discussing plans for violence at the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol, including bringing in weapons and imagining how they would use them against their political opponents.
Google and Apple have already suspended the Parler application from their respective application marketplaces, with the requirement that the platform improve its moderation.
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“We are aware of ongoing posts on the Parler app that seek to incite continuing violence in the United States,” a Google spokesman told Fox News.
“Parler has not taken adequate steps to deal with the proliferation of these threats to people’s security,” Apple told Fox News.
“The effect of this is that there is no longer an open and free social media company for any American,” said Nunes on Sunday.
He went on to say that Apple, Amazon and Google “just destroyed” Parler.
“Republicans have no way of communicating,” said Nunes, adding that “it doesn’t even matter if you’re Republican or conservative.”
He stressed that there is no social media platform for those “who don’t want to be regulated by leftists who are on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, where you have the shadow banned, nobody can see you, they decide what is violent and non-violent. “
“It is absurd”, underlined Nunes.
Parler’s suspension by Amazon, Apple and Google comes after Twitter’s decision to ban President Trump’s personal account, after the crowd of his loyalists invaded the United States Capitol, resulting in several deaths. The technology company accused Trump of inciting violence.
In a statement on Thursday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that the lock placed on Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will be extended “indefinitely”, saying “we believe the risks of allowing the president to continue using our service during this period are just too great. “
Facebook owns the Instagram platform.
Bartiromo said on Sunday that “all these actions certainly look like communist China, where there is a crackdown on freedom of expression.”
She then asked Nunes what he plans to do about it as an elected official.
In response, Nunes noted that Big Tech’s “hypocrisy” suspending Trump and Parler “knows no bounds”.
He pointed to the trend of “Hang Mike Pence” on Twitter late on Friday, with about 14,000 tweets after the social media platform banned Trump “due to the risk of further incitement to violence,” according to reports.
“I think this is violence,” said Nunes on Sunday, referring to Pence’s trends on Twitter. “Is Apple deleting the Twitter app from the app store? Of course not.
“Those CEOs who are doing this should be prosecuted criminally,” added Nunes.
“I have talked to many of my colleagues, Republicans in the House and some senators,” he continued. “Are we going to look for legal options, do we have legal options? Do we have our First Amendment rights? Are they being violated?”
He went on to say that he believes that “federal judges must intervene”.
“Legislatively, you have to understand, it’s not about Big Tech and that they’re just in Silicon Valley and they’re just trying to make money, no, they’re working for the Socialist Democratic Party,” said Nunes. “They are being encouraged by that. They are state media and it really is the communication system.
“This is how people receive their information through this funnel of very few companies controlled by the Socialist Democratic Party,” added Nunes.
Twitter seemed to notice the “Hang Mike Pence” trend at some point: on the Twitter Trending USA website, which tracks the last 12 hours of the top 10 trend topics, the item does not appear.
“We blocked the phrase and other trend variations,” a Twitter spokesman told Fox News on Saturday. “We want trends to promote healthy discussions on Twitter.”
Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter did not immediately respond to Fox News’s request for comment on Nunes’s claim that companies “are being controlled by the Socialist Democratic Party”.
Just before Nunes appeared on “Sunday Morning Futures”, Parler CEO John Matze said on the show that what is happening is “extremely scary” and that it seems that Big Tech’s moves are an effort to “stifle free speech and competition in the market. “
Parler is likely to be offline for “a while” on Sunday night, due to AWS ‘decision to suspend the social media platform.
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Matze told Sunday Morning Futures that the site will try to “get back online as soon as possible”, after writing on the platform that the site could be down for up to a week.
Fox Business ‘James Leggate and Fox News’ Peter Aitken contributed to this report.