Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is stepping into the controversy over Twitter, doing what a lot of other Republican politicians should be doing, but aren’t.
DeSantis spoke out against the report that Apple was considering removing Twitter from the App Store in response to Musk supporting free speech on the site. He warned Apple against taking such a step. He praised Musk for reinstating accounts that had been “unfairly and illegitimately” suspended because they put out accurate information about COVID. As that information came up against the narrative of what the Twitter powers that be were pushing at the time, they wouldn’t allow it.
“These experts were wrong and you had people on Twitter that were calling that out and Twitter, the old regime and Twitter, their response was to try to just suffocate the dissent and Elon Musk knows that’s not a winning formula,” DeSantis said.
Musk announced Monday that Apple “threatened” to withhold Twitter from the App Store without providing a reason as to why.
“He’s providing free speech and so if Apple responds to that by nuking them from the App Store, you know, I think that would be a huge, huge mistake,” DeSantis said in response.
He said that would be an exercise of “monopolistic power” and Congress should respond if Apple goes through with it.
DeSantis also blasted the CCP’s zero-COVID policy and the government’s reaction to the protests spreading across China against the COVID lockdowns that also involved the beating and arrest of a BBC journalist. Chinese officials claimed they arrested him for his “own good” to protect him against COVID. This is the response that we should have heard from the White House, instead of the ridiculously weak nothing of a statement that the Biden team made.
DeSantis said there were reports that Apple was not allowing protesters to use their Airdrop function when they were trying to communicate, which he said was “providing aid and comfort to the CCP and … that’s very concerning.”
“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 rights to express themselves,” DeSantis declared.
DeSantis is right on target with the reaction to Apple. Apple has no problem doing business with China, even as China is suppressing its people and the people are rising in protest. Yet, suddenly free speech is too much for them? And of course, the only reason that Apple is allegedly saying this is because the liberal establishment — media and Democratic politicians — are calling for pressure against Musk, with the Democrats trying to sic the FTC on him and other liberals calling for advertisers to leave. If they cared about human rights, they’d support Musk and they wouldn’t be working in China.
Leftist reaction to DeSantis’ call? To attack him for calling for the potential use of government power. How dare he call for government power in response to liberal collusion to shut down a site they don’t like? For shame!
More Republicans should be speaking out like this against the Democratic effort to shut down free speech.
