IANAL, but the relevant case law seems clear to me - the First Amendment doesn't apply to private property, even when that property is used like a public place, e.g. a mall.

What does seem to apply is State law - that is, seems like a US State can force a mall owner to allow people to express certain speech, without the State itself violating the First Amendment (as per [1]). Which raises the question whether the State(s) where Twitter has a legal presence could restrict its control.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R...

Then again IANAL, so I definitely don't understand how case law works. Just using common sense here. All I see in common between malls and Twitter/FB is they are both private property and speech is involved. There's a chasm beyond that.

> You throw that out so lightly. But it isn't so clear to me

It is clear to me: "Congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech."

I don't see where it says anything about private corporations.

Only if by "it can be argued" you're referring to being physically capable of arguing. Otherwise, no. The first amendment was never about guaranteeing you a platform or about otherwise ensuring anyone else hears you. It was about the government not arresting you for what comes out of your mouth.

Also you put words into my mouth. I never said anything about guarantees or platforms. But consider this: if the government's intention was always to turn over every useful platform to wealthy private owners, why bother with a bill of rights or first amendment at all?

I can't even understand your logic to try to make sense of this and respond to you. Are you saying you think if the first amendment doesn't imply X then X is unconstitutional?

EDIT: Can't reply to your comment, so here's one such article, from the EFF no less, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/attack-net-neutrality-...

EDIT in response to your edit: you dodged this pretty cleverly. Senators say a lot of wrong and even contradictory things (I hope I don't need to waste time finding you videos), and like any interest group, EFF stretches arguments beyond their applicability to support their agenda. (Not saying they have bad agendas! But having a desirable conclusion doesn't imply good arguments are being provided for it.)

There are pretty clear lines between:

[1] "some senators (and EFF) feel a lack of net neutrality would violate the first amendment" (which wasn't your argument, and if it was, is a pretty weak claim),

[2] "net neutrality was there to protect first amendment rights" (which was your argument, and the one I was asking you to support, and a pretty easy one to prove if correct -- all you need is to quote the rationales for the net neutrality regulation we had), and

[3] "lack of net neutrality actually violates the first amendment" (which you've been arguing towards, but which would require case law as proof, not senators' feelings)

Then perhaps our elected and appointed officials should not use Twitter when conducting government business.

But more importantly, this is a related but different issue from the one discussed in the brief. There are two questions:

1. Should officials have the right to block users for their political speech

2. Should officials be allowed to use platforms that block users for their political speech, or prefer some political speech over other speech.

IMO the answer to both questions should be "no". But this is case is really about the first question.