You say "hey, I don't want eggplant, I don't like eggplant" and the restaurants response is to say "but eggplant is really good and only bad people don't like eggplant. You aren't anti-eggplant are you?"

It's not an issue when it's one restaurant - that's just weird - but when it starts being 90%... 95%.. when they restaurants all get together and form an anti-broccoli commission, and start colluding to make selling broccoli illegal..

When the restaurants go to the Federal Government and say they need laws making broccoli illegal?

I would point out those book bans are not banned from reading or publication.. they are banned from school libraries because they have graphic descriptions of sex. If you feel it's important for your kid to be exposed to a storybook primer on gay oral sex... I suppose you should write your congressperson.

And in banning drag shows, the prohibition is on drag shows with underage attendees, usually without parental permission. Again, if you feel your kid needs to see someone in drag hip thrust in yoga pants on a stage without your consent.. you're welcome to lobby for that as you see fit.

I will spend my time fighting and continuing to fight for the freedom of expression.

These apps limit expression because it makes them more money. But they still limit expression. Instagram doesn’t want you linking out of instagram so you stay and view more ads. Tiktok bans for off site bios because it wants less controversy so they sell more ads. Etc etc.

Being a private entity that allows users to express themselves isn’t a restriction on the types of expression you don’t allow. The default is that Instagram doesn’t exist, not that it exists and must all anything you want it to.

The question is the extent of the limitation. And what’s “reasonable.”

Instagram offers what they offer. A forum for a topic or a medium offers something to you. The fact that they’ve chosen not to offer other things isn’t a limitation on your expression, any more than my burger shop is for not selling salads.

We don't owe Instagram some sort of being nice or saying nice things. If they run a subpar business that punishes freedom of expression, we can call that out and say it sucks.

But it's absolute baloney to claim that they punish freedom of expression because the venn diagram of "content they're willing to host on their infrastructure" and "content you want to publish" aren't perfectly aligned. Calling my burger shop bad because it doesn't serve salads is similarly baloney.

As far as the first amendment is concerned, government limitation of free speech, political speech in particular, is what matters.