That's the first amendment, not the concept of free speech. The concept of free speech can apply to private and public spaces, just as it can apply to government regulation of speech.

First amendment is what matters.

This is not true, there is a large amount of case law in the US that discusses what is and is not allowed in the context of free speech.

If you mean Supreme Court decisions, then yes, obviously.

You are missing other laws that already enforce standards on certain platforms, that are similar to the concept of free speech.

Those laws are called common carrier laws.

It is already illegal for many communication platforms, that a subject to certain classifications, to discriminate on the basis of the content of the speech that they distribute.

Common carrier laws are not controversial. Few people would argue that we should get rid of common carrier laws.

Common carrier laws apply to the unbiased transportation of information over networks, they do not guarantee hosting of information by private parties or access to their audience.

Example:

- CC laws guarantee that if you are able to host your speech on your own server that ISPs have to route information requests to it.

- CC laws do not guarantee you can force Reddit to host your speech on their own private servers or force Reddit to give you broadcast access to their audience.

The point being that phone systems really aren't that different than Twitter or Facebook.

I am arguing that common carrier laws already exist, and are not controversial.

And that it really isn't much of a stretch to change and expand our existing, uncontroversial, common carrier laws, so as to apply to other things that really aren't much different than our phone system.

Even if those laws have yet to be slightly updated to apply to the modern era yet.

Phones systems are information transportation systems that handle information requests.

Phones systems are are not platforms to host speech - i.e. CC laws can't force me to play your phone recording in my private home when someone calls me.

You talk about how established Common Carrier laws are, but that's precisely what they're established for - transportation. Hence the word carrier. CC laws were originally for unbiased trucking and rail transportation, and do not guarantee that you can force a private warehouse to store your goods.

> Phones systems are information transportation systems that handle information requests.

> Phones systems are are not platforms to host speech - i.e. CC laws can't force me to play your phone recording in my private home when someone calls me.

> You talk about how established Common Carrier laws are, but that's precisely what they're established for - transportation. Hence the word carrier. CC laws were originally for unbiased trucking and rail transportation, and do not guarantee that you can force a private warehouse to store your goods.

But here we have an example of Twitter modifying communications in transit (by attaching additional information that is not metadata and not part of the original message). This would be like the post office marking letters from you as "do not open" in bold red letters before they reached the receiver.

1) The president's message was not modified.

2) Twitter isn't a post office, it's a privately owned website. They do not handle transportation requests for information on the internet, just their own private servers meaning they are not a common carrier.

3) Even if you conflate twitter with being a privately own post office, CC laws do not prevent them from putting "Toxic" stickers on any toxic waste being handled by them.

Would it be acceptable to you if your ISP inserted warnings for emails you sent? I understand we have "spam" classifications but this goes beyond that and is done client-side and I can modify my client to not mark messages as spam. Would you consider the addition of a warning to all emails you sent a modification of your message?

Your point of "toxic" labelling is interesting. I think there is a difference in the non-physical realm though as "toxic" as it applies to ideas is subjective.

It wouldn't be acceptable to me but ISPs aren't regulated in that way and have attempted to use the argument that requiring them to carry information without any modification/discrimination is a violation of the ISPs free speech rights.

It's weird how the administration that is responsible for de-regulating ISPs also wants to regulate platform-holders because they're concerned about how they treat their message.

We don't need to go far to the conclusion of that line of questioning: Twitter actively deletes spam accounts and takes measures to block troll factories from using their platform, and this is not controversial.

Twitter makes the rules, if you don’t like the rules go elsewhere.

> You talk about how established Common Carrier laws are

I am saying that these laws are uncontroversial, and it would only require a slight expansion and change to them, to order for them to cover very similar things, that aren't that much different than what CC laws currently cover.

Yes, I understand that CC laws don't technically apply to what I am talking about. I am instead saying that it would only be a slight change, to make them apply, and therefore not as big of a deal as people are making it seem.

> but that's precisely what they're established for - transportation

I don't see how telephone companies transporting your phone calls is much different than twitter transporting your tweets. Yes, it is not exactly the same. It is slightly different. But only slightly.

> CC laws can't force me to play your phone recording

> do not guarantee that you can force a private warehouse to store your goods.

The private warehouse, or end phone user, in the twitter example, would be the end user. Twitter, is arguably, transporting your messages. And then the end user is not forced to keep it.

So even if CC laws were changed to apply to twitter, the end user would not be forced to keep their tweet. They could delete it, or not follow you, or whatever.

Just like how if I make a phone call to someone, they still receive the phone call, but you don't have to pick of the phone. The same argument could be applied to tweets.

> Phones systems are are not platforms to host speech

They have to transport speech. In the same way that twitter transports speech.

There is about 70 years of established case law on this. For a primer, read Technologies of Freedom. (https://www.amazon.com/Technologies-Freedom-Belknap-Press-It...)

All that said, the concept of where and how to apply common carrier is of course controversial, hence the entire net neutrality debate. If an ISP isn't required to carry content the idea of an information service (ie Twitter) being required to is borderline absurd.

> there is about 70 years of established case law

I have stated multiple times that I am aware that CC laws do not currently apply to these situations.

I am instead saying that these laws could be slightly changes, because, philosophical, there isn't much of a difference between a phone calls, and tweets or FB messages.

> is borderline absurd.

Apparently people don't think it is absurd to force phone companies to carry most phone calls.

And IMO, there isn't much difference, philosophically between a phone call and tweets or a FB message, even if our laws haven't been changed slightly to apply to them yet.

> I don't see how telephone companies transporting your phone calls is much different than twitter transporting your tweets. Yes, it is not exactly the same. It is slightly different. But only slightly.

Twitter is not transporting your tweets, they are storing them and distributing them to anyone who asks to see them (given a very loose definition of ask).

You are putting a large focus on something that most people would not say is the important and interesting part of the question.

Regardless, the actual storage of phone calls, or tweets, is not the reason that most people would say it is important for these things to not to be discriminated against or for.

Or another example, it is arguable that the water company stores water. And the storage of the water is a part of the transportation of it.

To use the example of phone calls, most people would not be OK with the phone company choosing to read your voice mail, and determining if you are allowed to store it based on the contents of it.

Regardless, the storage part is not the actual interesting part of the question here.

IANAL but common carrier laws are there to protect the carrier. e.g., people can use a telephone to plan a crime, but you cannot hold the phone company responsible for that crime. So the phone company does not discriminate otherwise they lose common carrier protections.

Regardless, I was responding to the 1st amendment claim by the GP.

> but you cannot hold the phone company responsible for that crime

Sure. But now imagine if we applied the same provisions to twitter or facebook. We could say that if they don't follow common carrier status, then we can hold them responsible for any crime done on their platform.

This is would almost effectively the same thing as forcing them to follow common carrier laws. And it would have the same effect as requiring them to follow the 1st amendment, but doing it in a round about way.

It is not exactly the same as using the 1st amendment. But it is close enough.

Because, TBH, we already use these laws for commication platforms, such as phone companies.

Well, they didn't discriminate. They simply used their right to free speech on their platform to add additional information.

So are you arguing that the president has a greater right to free speech than Twitter?

> They simply used their right

This isn't how common carrier laws work.

The way that common carriers laws work, is that companies that are subject to them do not have the right to pick and choose who they sell to, if they want the protections that theses laws provide.

Twitter isn't currently subject to these rules. But these laws already exist, and are uncontroversial, and could be extended to other platforms.

For example, if Twitter lost it's current content immunity, by being deemed a publisher, then it would be subject to significant liability, and may have to change up how it runs itself