At the forefront of what this monopoly means for Americans' free speech right is the recent banning of Gab, a Twitter competitor, from both Apple's App Store and the Google Play store. Since Gab officially launched its mobile apps back in August, neither Apple nor Google has agreed to make it available to either Apple or Google phone users – which means 98 percent of people are being restricted from using the Gab app because Apple and Google have decided to censor it.
In the old days, such a move would prompt swift market "discipline" in the form of new competitors to both Apple and Google rising from the ashes of these two corrupt entities. But in the internet age, this is a feat that hasn't yet materialized – and one that's especially difficult considering the unprecedented amount of power and control that Apple and Google have amassed in the mobile technology sector.
"What few people yet understand is that Google and Apple have used their duopoly status to revoke the First Amendment on mobile phones," writes Aaron Renn for the New York Post.
"Because the Internet is now majority mobile, and a growing majority of all Web traffic comes from mobile devices, the First Amendment is now effectively dead in the mobile sphere unless policymakers act to rein in the tech giants who serve as corporate gatekeepers to digital speech," he adds.
For more on how the information you see is controlled, be sure to check out Censorship.news.
Don't listen to Leftist lies: Gab co-founder is a Muslim who's never supported Trump, but who values free speech
It used to be that Leftists were the ones raising concerns about censorship and free speech, especially when it was them who felt as though they were the ones having their First Amendment rights infringed by tyrannical governments and corporations. But, my oh my, how the tables have turned now the Silicon Valley has gone full-on communist China by turning the internet's largest social media and communications platforms into far-Left echo chambers.
What's more, the very Gab app that Apple and Google have banned, claiming that it contributes to the spread of "hate speech" and "white supremacy," was created by a team of individuals that represent anything but what the tech cabal claims.
Gab co-founder Ekrem Büyükkaya, for example, is a Turkish Kurd Muslim who isn't even a conservative.
"I've never supported Trump for a minute in my entire life," Büyükkaya is quoted as saying.
The same goes for Gab spokesman Utsav Sanduja, a South Asian Hindu from Canada who's hardly a white supremacist, seeing as how he isn't even white.
Meanwhile, both Apple and Google continue to allow other "controversial" apps like the one created by 4chan to be available in its app stores. 4chan, in case you're not aware, has been caught hosting users who endorse ISIS, child pornography, illegal drug dealing, live-streaming of torture and murder, and various other "dark" web activity.
"Regardless of how one views Gab or any other application or group, two Silicon Valley companies should not be the governors of the mobile Internet," contends Renn.
"The mobile-Internet business is built on spectrum licenses granted by the federal government. Given the monopoly power that Apple and Google possess in the mobile sphere as corporate gatekeepers, First Amendment freedoms face serious challenges in the current environment."
For more free speech news, be sure to check out FirstAmendment.news.
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