"Despite its connections, the Council is by charter independent of the U.S. government and NATO, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization."[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Council

I guess what I'm saying is, Facebook is a private company by any reasonable legal interpretation.

Their claims of independence are irrelevant - they are funded directly by NATO. Its a pity the Hacker News woke crowd is so hostile to the 1st Amendment - a sign of the times.

http://www.thinktankwatch.com/2013/02/atlantic-council-relea...

I'm not hostile to the 1A, I just recognize that the Constitution applies to actions made by the government and not by private companies. Facebook can take money from NATO and still be private.

Funnily enough, even if Facebook was receiving money directly from several governments, they wouldn't be violating the First Amendment because they aren't the government. The First Amendment was designed to protect free speech from government (and the American government at that). It's arguable that even if the US government was providing some funding, they still wouldn't be violating the First Amendment.

So no, this is not a "First Amendment" issue. Nobody's telling these people they can't participate in society or publish their own blogs. They are just telling them that their anti-Semitic crap won't be allowed. And for that, we should all be thankful.