These companies spend billions of dollars annually on infrastructure and engineering to host user content. How can Republicans be asking the government to step in and dictate over that multi-billion investment? Doesn't that fly in the face of everything they believe about government's role in the private sector?
In your example, of course the pro-life CEO can do whatever they want with content on their site, assuming it was uploaded by users within the site's terms of service. If someone were actually paying for hosting of the content, they would have a case to get upset about having it taken down. But that's not the kind of contract that users of social media sites have made with the companies.
Eating meat is considered unethical by many and the fact that animals are often treated poorly by factory farming is not deniable. That's pretty clear cut. What ruling would you make?
Similarly incitement of violence isn't a political opinion to be agreed or disagreed with.
Yes it is [^1].
> Similarly incitement of violence isn't a political opinion to be agreed or disagreed with.
An incitement to violence is a specific thing, and it must be both specific and reasonably actionable. "Kill the Xs" is not an incitement to violence.
[^1]: Podcast with transcript. https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/2018/06/fi...
> Now that we have agreed that not all speech is protected, is this particular speech we are talking about protected? The answer is that first we start with a presumption that a law punishing speech for its content or message or subject matter violates the First Amendment.
> We look to see if the speech falls into a short list of well-defined historical exceptions to the First Amendment; obscenity, defamation, fraud, speech that’s integral to criminal conduct. And if the speech doesn’t fall into one of those narrow categories, the government cannot restrict it, unless it can pass that incredibly tough test called strict scrutiny, which is almost always fatal.
> So how much does saying you can’t shout fire in a theater help you in doing that analysis? Not a bit. It’s empty words. Every time someone says it I get a little more misanthropic.
If you want more background, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
So, as to whether it's illegal to shout Fire! in a crowded theater (which isn't on fire), I still don't know. The StackExchange folks lean toward it probably being illegal, especially if you end up causing a panic, depending on state. https://law.stackexchange.com/q/28853
I don’t think people can have their cake and eat it too. Either the CEOs of these companies start imposing their personal views on their users or they try to make the platform as neutral as possible. In-between solutions are going to make everyone angry.