Big Tech company Apple removed a conservative podcast from its podcast service on Wednesday, but it made it again available some hours later, with its host wondering why that could happen.
Glenn Beck, the host of “The Glenn Beck Program” and Blaze Media co-founder, received a message from Apple Podcasts saying his show was removed from the service because of an unspecified “issue” with the show.
The Glenn Beck Program discusses American news and politics and had over 3,000 episodes available on Apple Podcasts. All of these episodes disappeared hours before reappearing, without an explanation.
Apple sent a message to Mr. Beck that said, “We found an issue with your show, ‘The Glenn Beck Program,’ which must be resolved before it’s available on Apple Podcasts. Your show has been removed from Apple Podcasts.”
“I mean—I cannot imagine what they are—what they’re basing this one on. I mean, have we even had strikes? Nothing, right? This is crazy. Crazy,” Mr. Beck said in a video posted on Twitter that night.
“I have a feeling these ‘issues’ with @Apple and others will keep happening the more we’re over the target,”
His upcoming episode when the incident happened was titled, “Trump vs. Biden: Which Is the Crime Family?”
The summary describes Mr. Beck’s analysis of former President Donald Trump’s fourth indictment and is compared to the alleged evidence revealed regarding Hunter Biden and President Joe Biden.
“This is absolutely freedom of speech,” he said. “There’s nothing that we have said that would warrant any removal.”
“Maybe that’s what it is … maybe they’re just smoked because, you know, I’m pointing out the real crime family tonight,” Mr. Beck said.
“We have millions of listeners on Apple. It has always been fair to us. I cannot imagine what we might have done to deserve this as we do our best to hit their standards. This will mean the loss of a major fan base and revenue. We have abided by their rules,” Mr. Beck said to The Blaze.
Mr. Beck said on a Twitter video that the incident might have been a glitch, although doing a not clearly visible sign with his fingers while saying this word, that might have been the quotes sign.
“But it’s amazing how we have to have a whole bunch of people point out the glitch before the glitch is found, and it’s put back,” he said. “Man, this is—this is huge.”
“I think the closer and closer we get to this election, the more and more glitches are going to happen,” he added.
Blaze Media did not reply to a request for comment.
BlazeTV host Steve Deace wrote on social media, “Oh my. Even if it is a glitch, these ‘glitches’ only seem to go one way.”
Six hours after Mr. Beck’s show was removed from Apple’s platform, the podcast host said Apple restored over 3,000 episodes to iTunes, but did not provide “clear answers” for the unknown issue.
Big Tech Censorship
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) subpoenaed the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday to find out whether the federal government “coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.”“Numerous documents that have been made publicly available reflect the weaponization of the federal government’s power to censor speech online directly and by proxy,” Mr. Jordan wrote.
“It is necessary for Congress to gauge the extent to which DOJ officials have coerced, pressured, worked with, or relied upon social media and other tech companies to censor speech. The scope of the committee’s investigation includes understanding the extent and nature of DOJ’s involvement in this censorship.”
Mr. Jordan has previously said this week that his committee’s investigation has investigation “has uncovered smoking gun documents showing how Big Tech and Big Government worked together to stifle free speech online.”
On Aug. 7, Mr. Jordan was one of 12 congressional Republicans who joined a lawsuit against the Biden administration’s censorship-by-proxy scheme that involved pressuring social media companies to stifle free speech.
The Weaponization subcommittee recently obtained a cache of files documenting alleged government collusion with Facebook to silence speech protected under the First Amendment.
“We know through the Facebook Files that the Biden administration directed Big Tech companies to censor speech the government disagreed with, and launched a pressure campaign when companies did not comply with these censorship orders quickly enough,” Mr. Jordan said.
