(The Center Square) – Elon Musk says Twitter may now be removed from the Apple App store, prompting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to defend the social media company.
“Apple has mostly stopped advertising on Twitter. Do they hate free speech in America?” Musk, the billionaire owner of Twitter and Tesla, tweeted Monday. “Apple has also threatened to withhold Twitter from its App Store, but won’t tell us why. Who else has Apple censored?”
DeSantis said at a news conference that Apple may need to be investigated by Congress.
“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 and illegitimately suspended for putting out accurate information about COVID, that’s like one of the main things being reinstated,” DeSantis said. “So many of things these experts were wrong about, and you had people on Twitter that were calling that out, and the old regime at Twitter, their response was to just try to suffocate the dissent, and Elon Musk knows that’s not a winning formula so he is providing free speech.”
DeSantis argued that if Apple went through with the alleged threat, it would be a monopolistic abuse of power.
“So if Apple responds to that by nuking them from the app store, I think 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 said. “So don’t be a vassal of the [Chinese Communist Party] on one hand, and then use your power in the United States on the other to try to suffocate Americans and try to suppress their right to express themselves.”
Musk fired off a string of tweets about Apple Monday.
“Did you know Apple puts a secret 30% tax on everything you buy through their App Store?” he said.
Musk also posted a poll asking whether “Apple should publish all censorship actions it has taken that affect its customers.” More than 2 million users responded with about 85% choosing “yes.”
Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
Twitter has become a daily source of breaking news with Musk’s controversial comments and a string of policy changes from the social media giant. Musk said in a recent tweet that Twitter has hit all time high usage since he took over, though many advertisers have begun distancing themselves from the platform.
Musk hasn’t released data to back up the record user claim, but the site has been more tumultuous and a source of constant media coverage since he took over leadership of the company.
One of those controversial decisions was Musk reinstating former President Donald Trump to the site. Trump was removed after the Jan. 6, 2021, riots.
Musk tweeted a poll to decide whether Trump should be reinstated, with 51.8% saying yes to Musk’s question after 15,085,458 votes.
Twitter has also reinstated other users like the satire site, the Babylon Bee, Kanye West and liberal comedian Kathy Griffin.
A common criticism of Twitter has been inappropriate content toward certain groups as well as outright false information.
“New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach,” Musk tweeted. “Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.”
For his part, Musk claims the fight over Twitter is much bigger than just his company.
“This is a battle for the future of civilization,” he said. “If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead.”
The whole Apple sell out to the Chinese needs to be investigated. Apple should be told they have a choice,,,,,you can do business in the USA or China but not BOTH. Every Apple update has miles long conditions that nobody reads that takes all your personal information and forces you to copy it into “The Cloud” for future use against you and your personal privacy, every bit as deceptive as the Chinese controlling personal data accumulation version of Tic Toc who also should not be given any option to do business here, but fined and totally banned from doing business in the USA. Free speech is only the most obvious thing they seek to control and steal from you lives. Financial information, Credit Card usage, political party affiliations, GPS movements in Your Car,,,,,it is all there RIGHT NOW in the cloud, which sooner or later will rain upon your freedoms like a Tsunami of national destruction. Just watch as they go after DeSanits and Musk, once Trump is no longer a threat. The usual personal lies and allegations of illegality and sexual betrayals, all conjured up. The greater the lies just reveals the greater they fear those who stand against their flatulant evil conspiring winds, used mosly by their MSM to accomplish in personal attack that which they cannot accomplish in bribes, stolen elections and personal free speech debate.
I’ve never owned an Apple product.
I never will.
Doean’t matter if it’s Apple, Google or whatever. Smartphones, computers and nearly all devices are not made in the US. I doubt that even landline phones are made here.
The other smartphones come from no more honorable companies than Apple. Tech companies sell their souls to compete.
I was thinking of switching from windows to apple.. NO MORE.
There are too many US corporations beholding to Communist Red China. Their double standards One for American businesses and one for Communist Red China businesses. US business promote gay and woke culture, but, Delete it from things they sell in Communist Red China. Example is the censorship of American movies shown in Communist Red China. They delete anything that the Communist Red Chinese deems offensive, such as even a hint of gay thoughts or deemed to be gay. Yet the “American” movie companies insist on showing them in the US. They scream . yet they ignore the abuses that Communist Red China commits against it’s citizens.
NO US company imo, should ever be allowed to be OWNED a by an enemy nation.
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49% say President Trump should be banned from Twitter. These are the weak, fall in line, do as your told, can’t think for themselves, drama queen sheeple. The difference is, dunce Biden is on Twitter with his tiny fraction of followers, and I just never follow him. I don’t push to have this grifter banned. See the difference you sheeple losers?
Why so many people hate hearing the truth or at least let’s say the opposing opinion, totally baffles me. When only one side gets to be heard and msm continues acting like cheerleaders for one agenda, we all lose like it or not. Control msm/social media control the agenda and that’s what we’ve been seeing. IMO
It’s because the socialist agenda cannot survive open discussion, and therefore censorship is mandatory. Unfortunately we are at a point in time when most all the major influence makers (media) are controlled by the leftists. Musk is charging windmills and he needs all the support he can get from the general public (especially with the socialists now in charge of most of the government.
Plus for a good 8 years now, they’ve been told by media, social media and colleges. DISSENT IS HATE.
Opposing views are hate.
And hate has to be silenced..
It seems like George Orwell was right. He may have had the date wrong in his novel “1984” but the relevant facts are falling into place.
Our relationship with the communist People’s Republic of China is a complex one, with many of the items we use everyday being manufactured there or the materials needed to produce them are controlled by them. Lithium is needed for cell phone batteries. No cell phones, limited communication. Our land line system is being dismantled.
Tungsten, used in many space age and military alloys as well as in steels for everyday use, tungsten-carbide cutting tools and electronic filaments. China and Korea hold much of the world’s known reserves of Tungsten.
There are other materials and other systems to disable. There is no way we can go to an all electric car system by 2035 or even 2045. The infrastructure needed to do so is more that the economy can stand.
We need to be able to stand on our own 660,000,000 feet
Maybe cities need to start putting back IN LAND LINES. Just so we CAN keep comms, without trusting in China’s control over our cell phone industry.