Censorship is fundamentally coercive. Protected speech (specifically viewpoint expression) has no coercive element to it, whatsoever.
The thing about that XKCD comic of old that gets trotted out works under the assumption that you are asking someone to leave your property, under the possibility of forcible removal.
If you think you can use force to remove someone, then you'd better be damn sure that your property isn't a public common area, that you haven't monopolized communication, and that you don't exist solely as a entity with no editorial interest.
I like the explanation that it's similar to malls. Courts have actually dealt with people who go to malls and hand out flyers, and were banned for the content of those flyers to protect the mall from claiming forcible association with the pamphleteers. Well the courts ruled that malls don't have editorial power, and can't assume that anyone would inherently associate them with some random pamphleteer who literally walked in off the street with no barrier to entry. The malls were wholly privately owned, on privately owned land, and the claims still didn't fly.
The Social Media companies are public companies sponsored by government subsidies, tax breaks, grants, and funds, that also take their censorship orders directly from the state, acting as explicit state agents.
Yeah, it's not even a private company. It's a public company. It's a public, governmentally regulated, corporation.
The argument would be that making the companies carry the speech they object to would be compelled speech, which is a big 1st Amendment no-no. The mall explanation comes from the Pruneyard case, where a California law requiring private malls to allow pamphleteers was upheld. But there's also Section 230, which the companies rely on specifically to disclaim any responsibility for user generated content on the theory that it is not their speech. Can't have it both ways, the 5th Circuit ruled.
Incidentally, the Pruneyard shopping mall is about the most ordinary thing you can find, the last place you'd think would be associated with a Supreme Court case.
Censorship isn't speech.
Censorship is fundamentally coercive. Protected speech (specifically viewpoint expression) has no coercive element to it, whatsoever.
The thing about that XKCD comic of old that gets trotted out works under the assumption that you are asking someone to leave your property, under the possibility of forcible removal.
If you think you can use force to remove someone, then you'd better be damn sure that your property isn't a public common area, that you haven't monopolized communication, and that you don't exist solely as a entity with no editorial interest.
I like the explanation that it's similar to malls. Courts have actually dealt with people who go to malls and hand out flyers, and were banned for the content of those flyers to protect the mall from claiming forcible association with the pamphleteers. Well the courts ruled that malls don't have editorial power, and can't assume that anyone would inherently associate them with some random pamphleteer who literally walked in off the street with no barrier to entry. The malls were wholly privately owned, on privately owned land, and the claims still didn't fly.
The Social Media companies are public companies sponsored by government subsidies, tax breaks, grants, and funds, that also take their censorship orders directly from the state, acting as explicit state agents.
Yeah, it's not even a private company. It's a public company. It's a public, governmentally regulated, corporation.
The argument would be that making the companies carry the speech they object to would be compelled speech, which is a big 1st Amendment no-no. The mall explanation comes from the Pruneyard case, where a California law requiring private malls to allow pamphleteers was upheld. But there's also Section 230, which the companies rely on specifically to disclaim any responsibility for user generated content on the theory that it is not their speech. Can't have it both ways, the 5th Circuit ruled.
Incidentally, the Pruneyard shopping mall is about the most ordinary thing you can find, the last place you'd think would be associated with a Supreme Court case.