Rep. Nunes Calls for Racketeering Investigation After Big Tech Purge
Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of California on Sunday called for strong action after Big Tech “destroyed” the social media app Parler, which has been building a growing following among conservatives as other platforms have cracked down on them.
Amazon Web Services told the app that it was cutting its access as on midnight Sunday due to posts of which Amazon did not approve, effectively silencing the app until it can find another web host.
Amazon’s action came amid a flurry of Big Tech punishments against President Donald Trump, whose personal account was suspended by Twitter on Friday. Twitter later banned Trump’s official POTUS account until he leaves office, while Facebook has also banned Trump until at least the end of his term. Big Tech also sent into limbo tweets and videos posted by Trump that the tech giants said might cause violence.
Nunes made his comments during an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with host Maria Bartiromo.
“The effect of this is there is no longer a free and open social media company or site for any American to get on any longer. Because these big companies — Apple, Amazon, Google — they have just destroyed what was likely — Parler is likely a billion-dollar company. Poof, it’s gone,” he said.
“But it’s more than just the financial aspect of that. Republicans have no way to communicate. It doesn’t even matter if you’re Republican or conservative, if you don’t want to be regulated by left-wingers that are at Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, where you get shadow-banned, nobody gets to see you, they get to decide what’s violent or not violent — it’s preposterous,” the congressman continued.
“So I don’t know where the hell the Department of Justice is at right now, or the FBI,” Nunes said.
“This is clearly a violation of antitrust, civil rights, the RICO statute,” he said, referring to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, which was used against organized crime.
“There should be a racketeering investigation on all the people that coordinated this attack on not only a company but on all of those like us,” he said.
“I have 3 million followers on Parler,” the congressman said. “Tonight I will no longer be able to communicate with those people, and they’re Americans.”
During the show, Bartiromo said that “all of these moves certainly feel like Communist China, where there is this crackdown on free speech,” according to Fox News.
With Republicans now in a minority in Congress and a Democrat soon to enter the White House, Nunes said the courts will need to act.
“I’ve been talking to many of my colleagues, Republicans on the House side and a couple senators. We’re going to look for legal options — Do we have any legal options? Do we have our First Amendment rights? Are they being violated?” he said, adding, “Federal judges have got to step in.”
Eerily quiet here in the Twitter Sewer. Thought for a second I went to MySpace by accident. Many people I follow have been vaporized by left wing tech tyrants. Hopefully they will reappear on Parler and Rumble… pic.twitter.com/wU5lKM6V9c
— Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) November 12, 2020
“Legislatively, you have to understand, this is 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 Democratic socialist party,” Nunes said. “They’re being cheered on by this. They are state-run media and really it’s the communication system.”
“That’s how people are receiving their information is through this funnel of very few companies that are being controlled by the Democrat socialist party,” the congressman said.
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