Even more “scary” than Twitter removing the president Donald Trumpaccount of, governor Ron DeSantis says, tech companies are conspiring against Parler.
Speaking on Thursday at a presentation lunch at a legislative policy conference in Austin, Texas, the governor spoke about recent actions by Google, Apple and Amazon to restrict Parler after the US Capitol rebellion. The social media platform, used mainly by conservatives, calls itself a censorship-free alternative to Twitter.
“What really bothered me was how they beheaded this company, Parler,” said DeSantis. “You always said hey, it’s a market, you don’t like Twitter, create your own competitor. Well, they did that. “
After the riot, Twitter started removing some conservative accounts, including the president’s. Users came to Parler as a safe haven because Twitter was on the side of the president-elect Joe Bidenadministration, said the governor.
Google removed Parler’s smartphone app from its app store on Friday for allowing posts that seek to “incite continuing violence in the U.S.” and dangerous activities. ”The platform will need to address public security issues before it can be restored, said Apple.
Amazon struck another blow on Saturday, informing Parler that it would need to look for a new web hosting service starting at midnight on Sunday. He recalled Parler in a letter, first reported by Buzzfeed, which in the past few weeks had reported 98 examples of posts “that clearly encourage and incite violence” and said the platform “represents a very real risk to public security”.
“Not only did Apple abandon them, not only did you have other things, they removed them from Amazon’s web server. The lawyers gave up. They couldn’t even do that, ”he added. “This was a coordinated attack on a company that was trying to compete.”
The conservative think tank Texas Public Policy Foundation holds its Policy Orientation conference annually. The Texas biennial legislative session began on Tuesday.
DeSantis also said he was disturbed during the presidential election to see “credible articles” on Hunter Biden, son of the president-elect, “actively suppressed”. These actions affected the election, he said.
“Big Tech, could they really delete that information, and is that just OK?” DeSantis asked. “This is election interference, if you want to be honest about it, and this is something that really needs to be addressed.”
In response to Facebook and Twitter’s decision to permanently ban Trump, Republican Senator Zephyrhills Danny Citizen archived legislation (SB 520) Monday it would be require social media sites to provide notice for users who have been punished by the platform.