>What's surprising is how often I encounter fellow Americans mistakenly asserting the first amendment extends beyond government and into the private sector.

I've only ever heard people complaining that people misunderstand the first amendment. I've yet to see someone say they believe the first amendment governs and protects against private censorship.

However, I constantly see people conflating the concept of free speech and the first amendment. Free speech is an ideological principle, not a law.

If you read the first section of the EO it is clear that they are attempting to make an argument that Twitter, by moderating/curating/screening, is no longer protected by section 230, as defined by the famous 90s court cases regarding prodigy, aol, and compuserve. [0] [1]

Spurious argument or not you are mischaracterizing the situation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod....

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeran_v._America_Online,_Inc.

I'd be curious to hear real lawyers weigh in on this, but... that sounds pretty dubious to me. Executive orders aren't laws, they don't get interpreted by courts in general and they absolutely don't override existing case law! I mean, who cares what the executive branch says about section 230? We know what congress wrote, and we know how the judiciary has interpreted it, because we've already had that fight.

I found the following video insightful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmBGFVUjCaI

It seems like an executive order is more of a guideline on how they interpret the law. He mentions that congress would need to make changes to the law for it to have teeth. He also said there will be lawsuits on the way.

> I'm not sure how much more embarrassed I can get for my country.

Every election season, I’ve said, “These are some of the worst candidates I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure how much lower the bar can get.” And then it gets lower.

I submit one of the reasons our candidates are so bad is that our discourse refuses to hold them to account. Instead of taking a position and punishing bad acts, we excuse them by telling ourselves the other side "would have been" just as bad. So the lesson successful candidates take away is that they don't need to adhere to principles, because their voters will find some mental excuse (like you just did!) to vote for them anyway.

If you don't want this to happen you can't vote for the administration (not "candidates") who did it. Nothing changes until someone starts losing elections. But my guess is you aren't willing to go that far, because of something about Biden.

Remember that Kennedy won because the mob stuffed ballot boxes for him.

The only thing that's changed every election is that you're 4 years older an paying attention.

The Cox-Wyden Amendment: Section 230 specifically stated:

"encourage the unfettered and unregulated development of free speech on the Internet," as one judge put it;".

https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legislative-history

> What's surprising is how often I encounter fellow Americans mistakenly asserting the first amendment extends beyond government and into the private sector.

It's a confusion between the First Amendment and the principle of free expression, which is kinda forgivable given how closely they are related.

Not at all, they're directly at odds in this case. The President using presidential authority to restrict what twitter can say on their own platform is directly violating the first amendment to restrict twitter's free expression.

You can argue that twitter is also restricting others' free expression, but that is their right, while the government preventing twitter from doing so is a 1A violation.

It would be as simple as you write if social media companies would take responsibility for the publishing rights for what they publish, but they don't. For a long time they are picking and choosing the laws they want to abide by.

What law did Twitter fail to abide by in linking a tweet to factual information?

The fatal mistake which will cost the FAANGs billions is in becoming editors rather than facilitators by appending links to Twitter users posts. This doesn't scale (will all posts not edited/ appended to/rubber stamped by Twitter be considered 'true?) and also blows out the already stretched meaning of Section 230. This opens the door to much greater regulation of BigTech internationally.

'Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" (47 U.S.C. § 230). In other words, online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for what others say and do. The protected intermediaries include not only regular Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but also a range of "interactive computer service providers," including basically any online service that publishes third-party content. Though there are important exceptions for certain criminal and intellectual property-based claims, CDA 230 creates a broad protection that has allowed innovation and free speech online to flourish'.

https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

Section 230 co author twitter (sic) thread https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1266052221072019456

>factual information

Well... if you really want to get into it. Twitter can’t “fact check” the original statement. Because it was a prediction.

It hasn’t happened yet. It’s unlikely to be mass scale fraud, of course, but it’s a future event.

It’s his opinion / prediction. As wrong as it is, that isn’t something they should “fact check”.

Twitter picked a really bad tweet to make a stand on. Like it or not, they chose to editorialize someone else’s content, that’s a publisher.

They didn’t have to “break a law” to now be liable for other content they “publish”. That’s all the EO is, that Section 230 doesn’t apply to publishers.

> It’s his opinion / prediction. As wrong as it is, that isn’t something they should “fact check”.

"I believe that if we allow people to leave their homes, everyone will die of Covid-19". Narrator: "There is no evidence that everyone will die of Covid-19, in fact there is plenty of evidence that everyone will not die of Covid-19".

At which point you claim that the original statement, because it included opinion, could not be fact checked, even though presenting sources that counter the priors required for the claims to make sense is a completely reasonable thing to do.

I’m gonna nitpick, but they didn’t editorialize it. They posted their view in the form of a reply. Editorialization would mean changing what he wrote. Literally the root word of “editorialization” is edit.

Twitter as a company didn't even have a presence on Twitter until they posted the fact check.

Does that matter? Are they not allowed to start having a presence whenever they choose?

Allowed to? Depends how you view publisher vs platform.

They are a private company and can do as they like... but if they’re going to “take ownership” of information on their service they are breaking the spirit of neutral carriers and Section 230.

This seems like an odd hill to die on. Surely they could have fact checked 100 different Trump tweets with actual misinformation and not just his concerns/prediction.

I am of the opinion they wanted to do this for awhile, planned it out poorly, and pulled the trigger at the wrong tweet.

> breaking the spirit of neutral carriers and Section 230

Section 230 has nothing to do with neutral carriers. Section 230 does not mention, imply, or otherwise suggest that there is such thing as a "carrier", much less that one need be "neutral".

Here's what it says:

> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider

> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or

There's a bunch more, but it's all fluff or irrelevant. There are no relevant obligations (there is one obligation that the law has, it relates to kid-friendly modes in websites).

Note that there is no categorization as "publisher" or "platform". You are protected from certain kinds of content. The New York Times, who clearly publishes their own content, still has Section 230 protections for comments made in the comment box on their articles, because that content is not made by the NYT, but by another individual.

Under section 230, you can only lose protection on a specific piece of content if you are deemed to be the publisher of that specific piece of content. So the worst thing that can happen to twitter here is that they are determined to be the publisher of Trump's tweet for the purposes of things like libel and copyright lawsuits.

Given that, can you explain what spirit of the law is violated, and what spirit of "neutral carriers" (do you mean common carriers?) is related or to this?

Ok, that’s fair. Editorialize isn’t exactly right - except - it’s not just a reply. It’s altering the format to include a new entry that no one else could make. I suppose in my mind that’s how I would view an editor redlining something.

Can't Twitter fact check falsehoods that he stated in support of his prediction?

What exactly would be the public benefit of social media companies taking responsibility for user content? As far as I can see this framework does a fair job of making the same remedies available, just against the authors instead of the social media companies.

They will be able to silence those views they don't like and promote the ones they do. It will become readily apparent which side of the fence a social media company is on.

> It would be as simple as you write if social media companies would take responsibility for the publishing rights for what they publish

What do social media companies "publish"? In this case, the only thing twitter published was a link to information about mail-in voting[0]. That's it. They did so in the context of a tweet. So at worst, twitter would be liable for any illegal content in either President Trump's original tweet, or in the content I linked at [0]. That is what current US law says.

To change that would require an act of congress or a supreme court ruling. The court is unlikely to rule in favor of Trump[1], as the conservative justices favor businesses rights. So that leaves a new law/amendment to the existing law. That would need to pass the house, which seems unlikely as well.

[0]: https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384

[1]: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200528/01321044592/two-t...

Twitter is publishing everything any person tweets. Those 2 comments are nothing compared to the power of selectively blocking/publishing users tweets (which communication companies are not allowed to do), but at the same time not be responsible for copyright violations (which other types of media companies are).

Are you familiar with section 230? Which says that under current US law, twitter is not a publisher of the tweets it hosts. It would require an act of congress to change that.

Not to pile on but really do read it. I see how you get to the White House's position but it's a stretch. There don't seem to be any condions tacked on. They don't publish other people's tweats. I think they could maybe be held liable for illegally removing tweats. The protection afforded for filtering does seem dependent on the motivation but I'm not aware of any laws restricting what content they're allowed to remove and again in this case they didn't remove anything

I was working at Google in 2007, and the type of filtering we had was very different from what Google does right now.

We had automated filtering of word lists that took down sites, that were hate words / porn related for protecting children.

Right now I'm paying monthly for Youtube Premium, but I see that the people I'm watching have to be extremely careful to not say a swear word by chance, or even say the name of the COVID-19 virus, because they are scared of losing their revenue stream. I don't see this as fair, because Youtube got so popular _because_ it was allowed to publish anything without being responsible for copyright violations. It would be great for them to do fact checking as long as they are politically consistent.

In EU at least we have the GDPR that limits companies from using our data however they want to, but in the US at this point they need some kind of counterbalance.

Hum, also a YouTube premium subscriber. I think I see the demonization issue as somewhat separate. It's the result of negative news driving advertisers to fear their ads will be places adjacent to content they disagree with leading to negative publicity right? YouTube's options seemed to be either create tools for ad buyers to better manage the political palatability of the content their ads were placed next to or have the big spenders abandon them.

Regardless I wasn't comment on the morality of what big tech companies were doing only the legality. Nothing in https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 suggests to me that the protections are in anyway contingent on not removing certain content and certainty nothing suggests its contingent on not publishing content yourself in different contexts.

You can't separate demonetization from the question of publishing. Traditional media uses ads revenue for compensating content creators, but at the same time has a responsability for having copyright for every content they publish. Also just by the decision of demonetizing Alphabet gets farther from being just a communications medium earning money from helping the spread of information and getting to be a decider of what those users can communicate with eachother (Joe Rogan is a great recent example).

When a new law is being created, often it is created _because_ something legal, but immoral is being done by a person/company.

Also the law you refer to is a law inside the U.S., but Alphabet earns more than 50% of revenue (and most views) outside US. It was doing illegal business in the EU multiple times on grand scale and was given fines for it.

If I own Google and refuse to index and show in search results anything from Huffington Post, CNN, Washington Post is that okay? It is not! Technically, Google is a private entity and can do whatever it wants.

Once a company becomes too big like Twitter, Google, Facebook, they have a moral obligation to stay neutral.

Interesting how opinions expressing a viewpoint that differs from the hive mind gets down-voted.

> Huffington Post, CNN, Washington Post is that okay? It is not!

This happens. Frequently.

Replace "Huff post et al" with "Tiananmen Square" and search while inside China.

Specific to the US, the 1st amendment prevents the restriction of speech by government, which in some cases overlaps into private enterprise.

I would argue that Google has an obligation to be transparent, they do not have an obligation to be neutral. As you state, they are a private entity and can do whatever they want.

If news providers and other knowledge providers are allowed to curate what data they present then I don't think it's reasonable to demand that Google be held to a higher standard. Further, literally nothing is stopping you from creating your own knowledge aggregator if you feel that Google is doing a bad job of displaying pertinent data.

I'm a big proponent of free speech, and have read a bit on the arguments against Big Tech censorship. One of the arguments against Google being able to selectively censor political content, despite being a private company, is that they could be classified as an essential service. I'm obviously getting information from sources opposed to Google's censorship, so I don't know if the wider legal community agrees with that view, but it's worth considering.

Another argument is that they have legal protections as content providers. However, the same protections don't apply to content publishers. If their censorship places them in the publisher category, they could open themselves to lawsuits. YouTube is an example that usually comes up. If a user uploads an illegal video, YouTube has protections against lawsuits. As a publisher, they would have more liability for the content they host.

there are numerous examples when google removes websites from search results because of violating SEO rules and other rules of google.

numerous examples when google removes apps from their appstore.

even numerous examples when they are abusing search and prioritise their own products instead of competitors.

same for amazon.

corporate interests are not moral, dont forget that.

If an immoral actor reaches a certain size and dominance over enough people's lives don't we generally encourage taking action against that actor?

Violating SEO rules is bad and these sites should be removed that can be understood.

Is it good for the democracy if Google removes all results from new sites it doesn't agree with? It should remain neutral as much as possible and not tamper with its search results.

This is not what's happening on Twitter. They're not removing tweets.

They are just using Trump's tweet to promote their own point of view.

> They are just using Trump's tweet to promote their own point of view.

Correction: they're using their own service to promote their own point of view.

I honestly think there are real issues with the public means of communication being privately owned by a smallish number of entities, but it does free expression no good to make the fight about letting lies, disinformation, and other forms of untruth to flow unimpeded.

Social media are the broadcasters of this age. I see no reason why they should be exempt from the same rules and regulations as old school broadcasters.

The legacy OTA broadcasters were granted exclusive licenses to large chunks of a scarce natural resource (RF spectrum). Their public service obligations are essentially their payments on those licenses. Cable channels are under no obligation to carry news programming, for example, and are allowed to swear.

I don't think it holds up to say that because the internet is not a scare natural resource, rules have to be updated as situations evolve in multiple areas.

If you want to apply a rule like "speech must be a net positive for society according to me" in the general case, the rule you need to update is the first amendment. It's specifically because of that spectrum gift that the government can be so aggressive about public good with OTA broadcasters. Speech doesn't come under government control just because it has a large audience or is culturally important.

@closeparen is not saying "because" they were just explaining the legacy scenario that got us to the classifications used today

>The legacy OTA broadcasters were granted exclusive licenses to large chunks of a scarce natural resource (RF spectrum). Their public service obligations are essentially their payments on those licenses.

This seems like pretty strong implications of cause and effect. Doing something as a payment in return of a service (license).

I did not read as strong implication. Some but not strong.

the word "essentially" and my a-priori knowledge that OTA broadcasters have to also pay cash-money for the license and have other obligations.

I see the scares-resource as one of the many factors for OTA classifications different from webApp.

Fixes for this issue have to cover many legacy and many new complex factors

FCC regulations are pretty antiquated. Imagine not being able to curse on social media, for example.

I believe the correct model for large social media platforms (for example above 10m users) is that of a telecom provider.

Comcast can't block CNBC or Fox and at the same time nobody assumes that Comcast is responsible for view expressed on the networks it carries

Pretty sure comcast is legally allowed to block CNBC or Fox.

Cable channels regularly get dropped from lineups due to disputes over fees. Here’s a recent example of NBC in threat of being dropped. https://www.pressherald.com/2019/10/02/spectrum-may-drop-nbc... Edit: that link has a paywall, but here’s another discussing cable channels being dropped https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/tv-radio/2016/02/14/TV-Q-A-D...

There’s no general right to force cable providers to have your cable channel.

Comcast pays to carry CNBC and Fox content. They can freely decline to pay the content providers what they wish and drop their content. It is not an uncommon occurrence.

Fox and NBC cannot provide air time for one political campaign and deny air time for an opposing political campaign. Twitter is more like Fox and NBC rather than Comcast.

Twitter is nothing like Fox and NBC, unless they've managed to pick up a broadcast license without anyone noticing.

Fox and NBC are only required to provide political campaigns equal access because of their licenses to exclusive use of portions of the public spectrum.

Cable channels like CNN and Fox News don't use this spectrum, and thus don't have the same requirement. Twitter is more like a cable channel than a broadcast station.

I think there are two issues at hand here. The first is related to section 230 of the Communication Decency Act. This section provides a legal shield to companies that act as an intermediary by hosting comments. This legal shield is effective even if the intermediary moderates the comments and provides editorials. The executive action is saying if you are providing editorials, you are no longer just an intermediary and should be held accountable for what your users post. In other words, if you fact check your users posts you are responsible if hate speech or misinformation or child pornography are shared on your platform. I think 2 reasonable people could debate the pros and cons of this.

The second issue at hand is the catalyst for this change. Jack Dorsey picked a fight with a giant orange toddler. For some reason the American people entrusted this giant orange toddler with the full authority of the executive branch of the United States of America. The orange toddler decided throw a fit and use this power that is meant to better the American public to retaliate against this personal attack. This second issue is the one that makes me sad to be a registered Republican and an American.

Don't be sad to be a Republican. Elect better Republicans, and kick out the carpetbaggers.

The heart of this discussion is not the freedom of speech, it's the the ability to say whatever you want without consequence.

What Twitter wants, though selective undocumented "curating" of its platform, is the ability to slander, intimidate, harass, terrorize and verbally abuse whomever they don't like, without actually being drug infront of a jury and tried for crimes.

Telco's wanted the same government exemption that USPS had; someone mailed a letter with a bomb, they can't be held responsable. This was something the courts were likely to give them anyway.

Intentionally promoting a user's post containing a manifesto about assassinating a standing president is no different than USPS mailing millions of manifesto letters to people. One mechanism is simply more automated.

Talking as an outsider, what's really weird to me is how the things Trump clearly says or does on a whim result in serious, deep debate in all the media and public forums.

He goes "I will build a wall spanning a continent to stop mexicans" and you see deep debate about how effective it would be, the price, the logistics of it... it's clearly a dumb idea, why does everyone pretend it's not and engage in deep consideration of it?

Now I'm seeing the same thing. Extensive debates about public opinion, the first amendment and the difficulties of moderating a service with millions of subscribers, when it is painfully obvious that the only reasoning by the president is "they messed with me so I'm going to get revenge".

The American Presidency is a storied and historic office, not just a job but a symbol of the nation, of its civic and cultural identity, so it has been difficult for a lot of people to come to terms with it being occupied by someone who is quite so openly and vocally a gibbering idiot. Hence the need to pretend that these pronouncements represent proposals into which serious thought and effort has been invested, rather than the momentary whims of a bloviating narcissist.

> it's clearly a dumb idea, why does everyone pretend it's not and engage in deep consideration of it?

I've learned that Trump is an incredibly dull instrument, but the points he raises (when you get past the verbal diarrhea) tend to be things that some significant fraction of his "base" care about or that are not actually novel policy ideas. "The wall" as he describes it is dumb. But it has existed in some form since the 1990s (albeit only segments) and the way he describes it is a simple symbol for people that tend not to know how to "solve" problems related to (illegal?) immigration.

Most average people don't care about policy details so they don't know how to argue them to "win the argument". Trump gives them a sports team to cheer for and simple slogans to shout so they feel like they are participating.

> when it is painfully obvious that the only reasoning by the president is "they messed with me so I'm going to get revenge".

The problems that Trump has with social media companies go back far more than 2 days and a fact checking link. His Attorney Generals (both Barr and Sessions) have been working with Republican state Attorneys General for years to craft a response to what they see is "liberal Silicon Valley techies banning (or shadowbanning or remonetizing or ...) conservative voices". Trump doesn't see a downside to taking this action.

The interesting thing is that there are far more than just political American conservatives that want to see regulation of {YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc}. Elizabeth Warren wrote a detailed essay on medium.com about why they should be more strictly regulated. A crazy YouTuber from San Diego got so pissed at YouTube for banning her account or demonetizing her channel that she drove up to San Bruno (not sure exactly which city/location) and shot up the building. There are quite a few stories of vague ToS being enforced in a not-so-predictable manner which leaves end users with banned accounts (which may be the nexus to more important accounts like email accounts).

I think a lot of people blindly follow Trump because they also hate who he hates. Trump is a divider, and his supporters feel empowered by agreeing with whatever he says.

"The wall" was an issue long before Trump, as is section 230 for social media. So what may seem like childish tantrums, are in reality diversion and deception tactics in order to drum up thirst for reviving underlying political issues. Since there is already a somewhat stifled political debate, the diversion works on all levels, every single time, to spread FUD, disruption, renewed outrage, discordance and confusion.

Additionally, the intervention Twitter seems to have chosen here wasn’t actually to silence the user (who happens to be the current President), but to mark/annotate with a fact check label, which is essentially responding to speech with more speech. That’s entirely compatible with even far-reaching 1A readings and robust philosophical perspectives on it.

And in fact, Twitter’s civil leadership policy has been allowing such users (including Trump) extra leeway.

The fact that Trump is mad about this shows that what he’s concerned about isn’t his own freedoms of speech are being impinged on, but that his freedom from accountability in discourse might be threatened.

Exactly this and I'm surprised that I had to scroll this far down to find this comment.

Extract this scenario out into meat space. Imagine if a town was running a bulletin board where anyone could post town news and a citizen posted a flyer talking about town crime statistics that were wrong. A town employee noticed and posted an addendum identified as being from the town right next to the flyer saying "actually the real data is X". Should town employees not be allowed to do that?

That's because these companies function in a way that is between the private and public sectors, and are getting more so. There are plenty of precedents for this, e.g. utilities, and the way we generally address such gray areas is regulation. It's interesting in this case that the side that usually calls for regulation is citing the arguments of the side that's usually against it, and vice versa. (Corollary: no one actually has any principles about this. People care only about their side and pivot like a weathervane depending on its interests. Is there even a single example to the contrary? That would truly be a mutant.)

>I'm not sure how much more embarrassed I can get for my country.

I honestly used to be proud to be an American. Now I am so ashamed that when I travel (or back in the days when I traveled) I lie and say I'm a Canadian.

This strikes me as shameful behavior.

You should say the truth: you're an American, and Americans have a diversity of views on most subjects, just like every other country.

When conducting business this is more trouble, and causes more discomfort, than it’s worth.

FWIW, I've dozens of backpackers around the world with Canadian flags sewn on their backpacks who later admit quietly they're American.

They said it just makes life easier while travelling.

I used to be proud of our flag and would display it. Now (past 3 years) it has morphed into a symbol of hate and oppression. When I see armed 'protestors' terrorizing a state legislature and waving the flag, then the flag is no longer a symbol of freedom but of intimidation.

You may want to read the history of banana republics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic.

Given the wildness of that particular dark corner of our history, I'm looking forward to reading about the history we're living through now. Hopefully after some emotional remove, like in another ten years.

Those people may know more than you think.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v....

Twitter is a California company.

> movie theater where they need to shut the hell up or leave.

This has nothing to do with anything. The 1A has always been understood as a freedom of content, not form. Noise ordinances and rules are constitutional.

There's the legality of freedom and the spirit.

I'd be pretty disturbed if an ISP all of a sudden prevented me from contacting wikipedia, or throttled my access to competitors. The ISP is private, but it's not really in the spirit of freedom to do so.

Similarly, if an airline said they won't sell me a ticket because I'm going to a rally for a particular politician. Or if the post office (or fedex) wouldn't carry my letter to the editor because they disagree with my opinion. Or if I couldn't get basic banking, insurance, or other business services because my legal business is politically unpopular.

There also is some legal murkiness because a federal judge ruled that Trump couldn't block people on Twitter[1].

[1] https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-twitter-facebo...

>I'm not sure how much more embarrassed I can get for my country.

Just wait until tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that...

Most people totally miss the point.

The first amendment is there from preventing the government from controlling the speech. Exactly what Trump is doing to Twitter right now.

> Most people totally miss the point.

Because 'free speech' is literally _all they know_ about the subject. If they did look it up, they would literally see the very first words of the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law (...)".

Literally about the legislative branch. Every other consequence of the First Amendment comes from that. Other laws can be more specific and may grant more rights, but this just specifies what the government can't take away.

> "Congress shall make no law (...)"

The Bill of Rights has also been extended to apply state governments, based on the 14th Amendment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...

Apologies if this is a stupid question; I'm a foreigner so I can't understand freedom like Americans do.

But if the first words are "Congress shall make no law", does that mean that the President and his executive orders are not bound by the First Amendment?

The president has no authority over this subject matter except that given him by congress.

This executive order is a directive to the FTC and FCC, which are both bodies created by congressional law.

As a result, neither has power to violate the first amendment since by virtue of being created by congress, they are subject to the literal reading of “Congress shall make no law”.

For what it’s worth - the 14th amendment passed after the civil war has been read to extend the protections of the bill of rights beyond their literal sense anyway.

Technically yes, other branches are not bound by the first amendment.

By the spirit of the law, no. A lot of historical laws and constitutional writings were to limit power of the government in general. When the constitution was actually written, the executive was just a puppet with military commander powers. But over the centuries there has been power creep into the executive.

Such battles end up in supreme court and the court decides ultimately what interpretation would hold up. The current supreme court is republican/right wing leaning which often ignores the spirit of the law FWIW.

Actually, the way it works is:

legislative branch - writes the law

judicial branch - interprets the law

executive branch - executes the law

FCC, FTC etc were created by legislative branch to make governing specific areas more streamlined, they are still bound by whatever legislative branch is bound.

> FCC, FTC etc were created by legislative branch to make governing specific areas more streamlined, they are still bound by whatever legislative branch is bound.

I would recommend reading up on historical executive orders held judicial review and how they impacted operations of 3-letter organizations

> If they did look it up, they would literally see the very first words of the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law (...)".

The great irony is that the same people will happily quote "... shall not be abridged" when it comes to the next Amendment.

His motivations may be personal but they laid out the reasons for doing it pretty clearly. 230 was being too broadly interpreted, can anyone on either side of the aisle dispute that fact?

Why does the US government exist? The only reason is to protect the rights of the citizens.

Once upon a time, the rights of citizens only protected them from the federal government's actions. States could (and did) infringe on these rights. Corporations were much less powerful at this time, so were not much of a concern.

We ended up fighting a war over this, and one result was the 14th amendment, which binds the states to also protect these important rights.

Now a days, corporations are powerful enough to infringe these rights. We've dealt with this in the past when "trust busting" was more of a thing. There is established precedent for not allowing monopolies to infringe on people's rights.

There's nothing special about the "private sector" that allows big corporations to infringe people's rights without due process.

I’m sad to see this downvoted. I’m not entirely sure I agree with your point, as I think the gulf between “profit-seeking corporation” and “democratically-elected government” is a lot wider than the one we jumped between Federal and state government for the 14th. That said, I like that this line of thinking made me question some assumptions I didn’t know I was even making before.

You do not have a right to use Twitter. Currently, in the US, you do not even have a right to use the Internet. Twitter and ISPs may decide not to service you. As it pertains to Internet services specifically, these services are also allowed to moderate content that you post. You are not guaranteed a right for them to host your speech and show it to the world.

If you have an issue with how Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube, et al. moderate content, you are completely free to create your own Internet service which you may moderate as you see fit.

The US government exists to insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. The government is not interested in protecting the rights of citizens. Instead, it is the rights of citizens which are meant to protect us from the government. Other laws may dictate how businesses are allowed operate but the first amendment absolutely does not apply to private businesses.

During the civil rights era, private businesses infringed on people's rights with state government backing. People with the wrong skin color were forbidden from being in certain restaurants or sitting in certain seats, etc.

These were private companies infringing on rights.

The president sent in the national guard.

Again, you are conflating rights granted by the constitution with legislation that dictates how businesses must operate. Racial discrimination in public accommodations, like those that you mentioned, was outlawed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964[1]. In that case, those private companies were explicitly breaking federal law. Rights granted in the constitution are separate and are only intended to protect citizens from the government.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

The constitution does not grant rights It merely enumerates some of the rights we have.

The civil rights act did not make up any rights - it created law to enable enforcement and protection of rights people already had, but which were being infringed - both by states and by private businesses.

The social media monopolies are infringing on our rights. There may not as yet be a legal remedy for that, but it seems likely that there will be, as in many ways these companies are more powerful and wield more influence over people than governments do.

I think that you have a general misunderstanding on what a "right" is in the eyes of the law[1]. Furthermore, you appear to also have a misunderstanding of the differences between natural rights and legal rights[2].

> The social media monopolies are infringing on our rights

The right to free speech is not a natural right; nor does it apply to anything but freedom from government persecution on the basis of speech. Freedom of speech is a right that is granted by the constitution and has been further defined by case law over the past 250 years. The Supreme Court has pointed out that private companies are not subject to protections enumerated in the constitution, which, again, only apply to the government[3].

[1]: https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Right

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rights_and_legal_right...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Community_Access_Cor...