> If that were true it would create a loophole so big that the first amendment would practically not exist. The President could require the New York Times to carry a daily editorial on the front page from the desk of the president, with just with an additional caveat "This editorial does not reflect the opinions of the NYT". The President could require TV stations to broadcast speeches from the president speaking in the Rose Garden.
If the government is, in effect, simply hijacking a private communications medium to carry a message that's clearly from a different speaker, that's permissible. In TBS v. FCC, the Supreme Court held that cable companies can be forced to carry local channels: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/520/180/#tab-opi.... It found the burden on "cable providers editorial discretion in creating programming packages" to be insufficient to raise a first amendment problem.
Under the reasoning of TBS, Twitter has even less of a basis for claiming first amendment protection. Cable companies exercise "editorial discretion" in curating channels to fit into a limited number of available slots. Twitter doesn't need to do that and doesn't purport to do that.
> You're just pointing out that the free speech guarantees of the first amendment aren't absolute, which isn't in dispute as far as I know.
Not just that, but the guarantees are greater or less depending on the type of speech. The protection is very low for commercial speech that isn't purporting to carry any sort of message.
If the government is, in effect, simply hijacking a private communications medium to carry a message that's clearly from a different speaker, that's permissible. In TBS v. FCC, the Supreme Court held that cable companies can be forced to carry local channels: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/520/180/#tab-opi.... It found the burden on "cable providers editorial discretion in creating programming packages" to be insufficient to raise a first amendment problem.
Under the reasoning of TBS, Twitter has even less of a basis for claiming first amendment protection. Cable companies exercise "editorial discretion" in curating channels to fit into a limited number of available slots. Twitter doesn't need to do that and doesn't purport to do that.
> You're just pointing out that the free speech guarantees of the first amendment aren't absolute, which isn't in dispute as far as I know.
Not just that, but the guarantees are greater or less depending on the type of speech. The protection is very low for commercial speech that isn't purporting to carry any sort of message.