WATCH: Crowder, Legal Expert Unpack Social Media’s ‘Deceptive Trade Practices’

After one of his videos was abruptly banned by YouTube for a supposed “privacy violation” and his account was simultaneously suspended “for hateful conduct” from Twitter for the same video, conservative comedian Steven Crowder sat down with his “half-Asian” lawyer Bill Richmond to unpack the details about what exactly unfolded and address the issue of “deceptive trade practices” concerning social media platforms.

In the “Louder with Crowder” interview, Crowder explained what he describes as “systematic” attempts by the platforms to target his posts without a defensible rationale while protecting others, including openly libelous posts about him, like those created by a Neo-Nazi site attributing fake anti-Semitic quotes to him. ​

In some cases, Crowder said, Twitter has approached him about publishing ads, helped him write the ads, accepted payment for the ads, then turned around and deemed those ads a violation of their own practices. “They wrote the copy!” he exclaimed.

“Those are the laws of the State of Twitter,” Richmond, who specializes on “business agreements, real estate transactions and contracts, and related corporate disputes,” replied. “That’s exactly what you’re living under right now.”

“Is that legal to do?” asked Crowder.

“No,” said Richmond. “The issue is a deceptive trade practice. We’ve talked about this before when we were dealing with Facebook. … For Twitter it’s again the issue that you sell this product, you sell a service, you send emails, you induce people to spend money on advertisements, you get them to do it, then you write the ads, you approve the ads, you collect more money on the ads, you build up a brand, you build up a Twitter handle based on those inducements, and you take all the money — and then you go, ‘No.'”

“If you want to say they’re a private platform and they can do whatever they want, that’s fine,” said Crowder. “What you can’t do is take our money that we would invest elsewhere to your platform and then systematically screw us — while allowing illegal content that’s libelous and dishonest.”

“The only way you can explain it is if there’s a certain viewpoint that’s favored and a certain viewpoint that’s not,” said Richmond, adding, “or they have to admit that they just don’t know what they’re doing.”

WATCH:

Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro addressed Crowder’s suspension from Twitter on his podcast on Wednesday. Shapiro notes that the infamous Louis Farrakhan is regularly tweeting openly anti-Semitic content on the platform yet is allowed to remain active, while a conservative comedian who dares to push the boundaries on political correctness is banned: