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Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis slammed Apple during an interview Tuesday evening for its role in hindering widespread protests against China's severe pandemic restrictions and for allegedly threatening to boot Twitter from its App Store.
"If you look what's going on in China now, the CCP, they have been imposing these zero COVID lockdown policies. They have been doing it on and off for three years," DeSantis told Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
"And you have people in China that are really engaged in a noble effort to protest which is basically Leninist rule. So, what is Apple doing with that? They are limiting the AirDrop function of the protesters. So they are serving basically as a vassal to the Chinese Communist Party."
"Then, on the other hand, here in the United States, what are they doing? They are trying to get Elon Musk's Twitter off the App Store, potentially, which would be a huge blow for free speech," he continued.
"And so this is maybe the most powerful company in the entire world, certainly one of the most powerful companies in American history. They exercise more authority in some respects than even some governments do. And they're using their authority to protect the CCP while also try to limit speech here in the United States."
DeSantis said that federal lawmakers needed to break up companies like Apple using anti-trust laws because
"they are exercising massive amounts of power over our society."
WATCH:
TRANSCRIPT:
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: So, apparently, Apple is considering, according to Elon Musk, removing Twitter from its App Store, which would, of course, shut down Twitter.
And almost nobody in office has noticed this or decided to comment on it, except for Ron DeSantis. He's the governor of the state of Florida.
He joins us tonight.
Governor, thanks for coming on.
So, of all the news going on in the world - and there's a lot of it - you stopped on this story, and you commented on it. Why? Why did this catch your attention?
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Well, Tucker, if you look what's going on in China now, the CCP, they have been imposing these zero COVID lockdown policies. They have been doing it on and off for three years.
And you have people in China that are really engaged in a noble effort to protest which is basically Leninist rule. So, what is Apple doing with that? They are limiting the AirDrop function of the protesters. So they are serving basically as a vassal to the Chinese Communist Party.
Then, on the other hand, here in the United States, what are they doing? They are trying to get Elon Musk's Twitter off the App Store, potentially, which would be a huge blow for free speech.
And so this is maybe the most powerful company in the entire world, certainly one of the most powerful companies in American history. They exercise more authority in some respects than even some governments do. And they're using their authority to protect the CCP, while also try to limit speech here in the United States.
CARLSON: While existing as an American - supposedly American company, using our copyright protections, our rule of law to their own advantage. They're benefiting from America, but working against our most basic value, which is free speech.
What can be done about that?
DESANTIS: Well, Tucker, in the states, we did big tech censorship bill two years ago. It's gotten caught up in the courts. I think the U.S. Supreme Court is going to accept that case for this term. Texas has a similar case. There's a conflict in the circuits.
And so, whatever the states can do to protect people's rights to engage in free expression - and, you know, what some of these companies do, they get a lot of benefits from the government, as you said, patent, things like that.
CARLSON: Yes.
DESANTIS: The social media companies get liability protection.
And yet they turn around and they use that protection to marginalize voices they disagree with. So, I think, from the congressional perspective, though, they need to look at antitrust with these massive companies, because they are exercising massive amounts of power over our society.
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