On Tuesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) called on Congress to take action against Apple if the company attempted to remove Twitter from its app store, saying it would be a “raw exercise of monopolistic power.”
DeSantis began by discussing new reports that Apple was blocking Chinese protestors from using the AirDrop function to communicate, saying it was “providing aid and comfort to the [Chinese Communist Party].”
“As you’ve seen that go on in China, you know, there’s reports that Apple is not allowing the protesters to use this airdrop function where they’re trying to communicate,” he said. “That, obviously, is providing aid and comfort to the CCP. And so you see that report and that’s very concerning.”
DeSantis continued, “And then, when you also hear reports that Apple is threatening to remove Twitter from the app store because Elon Musk is actually opening it up for free speech and is restoring a lot of accounts that were unfairly an illegitimately suspended for putting out accurate information about Covid, that’s like one of the main things that’s being reinstated, so many things these experts were wrong at and you had people on Twitter that were calling that out and Twitter, the old regime in Twitter, their response was to try to just suffocate the dissent. And Elon Musk knows that’s not a winning formula and so he’s providing free speech.”
“So, if Apple responds to that by now nuking them from the app store, you know, I think that that would be a huge, huge mistake and it would be a really raw exercise of monopolistic power that I think would merit a response from the United States Congress,” DeSantis added. “Don’t be a vassal of the CCP on one hand and then use your corporate power in the United States on the other to suffocate Americans and try to suppress their right to express themselves.”
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) November 29, 2022
